Missoula City Voters...You've Got (Hate) Mail

Rude. Unwise. Illegal and Improper.

These are words mainstream residents are using to describe the e-mail brouhaha engulfing liberal-progressive members of the Missoula City Council.

So what is this e-mail hubbub all about?

Well, it appears that some of our upstanding aldermen have been using their city-issued laptops and e-mail accounts to conduct a meeting-inside-a-meeting during Missoula City Council sessions.

In these e-mails, certain council members do everything from swap votes to diss the public.

…the topics run the gamut. Councilors are “talking” about amendments. They're discrediting the public. They're scheduling lunch meetings and even making jokes.

What’s the problem with this, you say?

It seems that these secret communications reveal a covert attempt by liberal-progressive members to conduct important city business outside of the public view.

Several e-mails sent during public meetings show a group of council members privately strategizing about matters on the agenda.

And legal experts also say the practice is probably illegal under Montana’s open meeting statute.

Clem Work, a professor and legal scholar at the University of Montana School of Journalism, said...the public doesn't get a chance to participate in the meeting taking place by e-mail because they don't get to hear or see the interchange of ideas.“I think council members sending e-mail messages back and forth to each other during City Council on any substantive matter whatsoever certainly violates the spirit of open meetings laws."

But why should you really care?

Because not one of these members has even mouthed an apology. And to top it off, Council members Rye, Childers, Marler, Strohmaier and Jaffe aren’t even the slightest bit embarrassed for getting caught secretly badmouthing citizens and fellow council members.

Instead, they have attempted to circle the wagons with really LAME explanations.

E-mailing council members defend their communications as expedient, and say the public has ample access to city government in Missoula. E-mail allows them to quickly vet an idea among trusted colleagues to see if it would survive on the floor, they say.

“There's not enough hours in the week to talk to death about everything,” Rye said.

Yet there is ample time to talk about chickens, the Iraq War and the Pledge of Allegiance.

And that goes to the heart of the problem on our city council.

This group has governed in a liberal-progressive echo chamber for the last two years, focusing on progressive cause-celebs while ignoring the mainstream issues voters care about, like filling potholes, planning our growth, and looking for ways to make government more responsive and efficient.

Missoulapolis points it out best when she mentions that these are the same folks who "are in charge of a $124 million budget.” Our fair city deserves better.

The Scoop agrees with the words used by mainstream residents, but he would like to add a few of his own… Throw The Bums Out.

Missoula needs to elect a group of mainstream Democrat, Independent and Republican candidates that are not aligned with the lock-step liberal-progressive movement.

We need a council willing to listen to the people...not one that pays more attention to partisan marching orders that are delivered via e-mail.