The Concerned Citizens in Action (CCIA) were all pumped up after returning from Seattle last week, receiving a Key Award from the Washington Coalition for Open Government. A well deserved honor.
The meeting Wednesday night met at the Community Room of the CW Port. They invited the public as well as invited the opportunity for the public to offer ideas and input.
Seeing the opportunity to speak freely, always a risk to any person when I’m around, I didn’t disappoint and had a few ideas and suggestions for the group to consider.
The meeting was represented by a diverse group of people. In attendance were three Washougal City Council members, local business owners, community activists, a Port official and former Port official. Obviously absent from the meeting were any City of Camas elected officials or representatives, any CW Chamber representatives or School District representative. Disappointing to say the least.
The CCIA board members made it very clear, I supposed because I was there, that the purpose of the CCIA is to educate, assist, and support the public regarding open and transparent government. They stressed that the CCIA is NOT a Political Action Committee or will take sides in support of any politician or imitative. Now individual members may support specific candidates, but it is not to mean the CCIA supports a candidate.
As many of you know if you’ve read this blog for any length of time, I had issues with the Public Information Request process of the CW Port in recent months. I am pleased to say that the Port, spearheaded by Executive Director David Ripp, is adding more details to Port monthly meeting minutes and posting them on their website. I’ve remained concerned that access to the Ports Public Records Request form is not user friendly, is out of date, and is intimidating and illegal in the manner of which it is presented – requiring a notary to request public information. David Ripp has been addressing this and stated that the Port has be research the form and working to create a simpler form that one can fill in on line and automatically submit to the Port. This will make Public Information requests more user friendly, cost less due to paper reduction, more compliant with the law and better for the environment using less paper and ink.
I want to thank David Ripp for spearheading this and working towards more transparency and taking action to citizen requests.
Sheldon Tyler, you remember, former executive Director of the CW Port who left abruptly in questionable terms, Was overly opinionated about a certain blog in our community. It appears someone with the same name as Sheldon has commented on the CW Watch blog using the name Sheldon. Can you believe it? There might actually be two people named Sheldon in the East County.
Sheldon says “and it’s not me. Someone is using my name and it’s not me.” So Sheldon, maybe you could use someone else’s name rather than Sheldon (Tyler) so Sheldon Tyler doesn’t think we think its him.
Sheldon Tyler hasn’t really grasped the concept of a Blog and must think we are a profit making News agency like a newspaper. Sheldon, as well as a few others have expressed to me that all commentators on CWWatch should use their real name and use real email addresses. I realize this is a very debatable issue, but we believe that this blog represents freedom of speech, expression and freedom from local persecution to the commentator – which can and is experienced against people who express their honest opinions within a small community. So, as long as commentators abide by the blog rules, which are very clear, we will publish their comments and discussions. Yes, at times, these freedoms are abused, requiring more moderating, but for the most part, discussion and comments are civil and eye opening.
An action of the CCIA which I enjoyed seeing, was that they will begin focusing on diversified efforts, using “observers” to attend government meetings. They will be observing, taking notes, and reporting back to the group.
Observer Committee Chairs have been selected:
Observing the Port of Camas/Washougal Richard Hamby and John Wagoner
Observing the City of Camas Bernice Pluchos
Observing the City of Washougal Gary Cole and Martha Martin
It was also suggested that the CCIA include observers for the Camas and Washougal School Districts.
Inquiring minds what to know….well… did I join the CCIA as a member? The jury is still out on that one, or as Camas politicians like to tell me “no comment”.
I do want to thank the CCIA for inviting me and the rest of the public to their meeting and hope that future CCIA meetings will also be open to the public.
If you would like to see more details about the CCIA, check out the website or their new blog at
www.concernedcitizensinaction.org
-Gary
Sept. 2 -Primary Election is Certified
3 Comments
September 25, 2008 at 6:28 am
Good summary. One addition … a 4th Washougal Council member did walk in after we started. All members contributed to the discussion. Would have been nice to see Camas Council and others there as well, but a good energetic turnout.
September 25, 2008 at 9:05 am
As a resident of Camas, I am disappointed that no one from the Camas Council attended.
September 25, 2008 at 10:19 pm
You would think that the Camas Council would be concerned about what the Port does. 55% of the Port’s property tax money comes from property owned by Camas tax payers.
Comments are closed.