A few news items recently caught my attention.
In the Nov. 25 Columbian story, “Madore’s to-do list much longer than just CRC,” a county public employee union representative said he didn’t think allowing public attendance at contract negotiations was a good idea.
Another story “Battle Ground passes tight budget” reported about the Battle Ground mayor wanting to host a series of town halls to discuss budget issues.
Making public employee union negotiations with their bosses open to their employers’ attendance is a wonderful idea. It’s called transparency and we all have heard how public officials want more of this.
I also like the idea of mayors and councils having town hall meetings on major budget issues. Now Vancouver’s mayor, a part-time employee, might correctly say he’s already spending a lot of hours on the job and also holding down full-time employment in the private sector. I have a solution: Let’s encourage our council to do what it has to in order to make Vancouver’s mayor position a full-time one. Vancouver has grown too large to continue to operate with a part-time mayor.
