Planning Commission pulls the plug on Clerkbase

Too much “open and transparent government” apparently

Collage by Lin Collette. More more, click here.

By Will Collette

Since the Planning Commission began its new term after the November 6 elections, its meetings have been blacked out on Clerkbase[1]. It wasn't supposed to be that way – the town has a policy of posting an audio-video recording of all Planning, Zoning and Town Council meetings. The meetings for the Council and Zoning are still recorded and posted.

But Planning is not being recorded on Clerkbase. Not since October. Even worse, when I checked Clerkbase on New Year's Day while finalizing this article, I found the Clerkbase video links for all Planning Commission meetings going back for months are now either absent or don't work. Maybe Charlestown didn't pay the bill.

Now, I get it. It’s one thing for the CCA leadership who control Planning and the Town Council to talk about how much they treasure openness and transparency. It’s another thing altogether to have their actual deeds put up on the internet for anyone to see. Besides, it's easier for the "Voice of the CCA" Mike Chambers to revise history when his CCA buddies destroy the historical record and you can't look back to see and hear the actual discussion..

I guess they got sick of the articles in Progressive Charlestown where we report on some of the crazier things they do – and then provide a link to the recording with the suggestion to readers that they should look and listen for themselves to see whether we’re making stuff up. Click here for an example. Or click here for another favorite. These examples show why Planning probably doesn't want to encourage recording of their meetings.

Charlestown has also delayed posting Clerkbase video of Council meetings. I have had to complain about missing video after almost every meeting for the past several months and only then does the video get posted, usually four or five days, sometimes a week later. Even when I don’t complain, it usually takes at least three days before the video gets posted.

No, Tom, Clerkbase hasn't worked the way you said in almost
two years.

At the December 10 Town Council meeting, the CCA’s Town Council boss Tom Gentz made a passing remark about people watching Clerkbase video of meetings the day following meetings.

Except he apparently doesn't know that it’s been almost two years since Clerkbase video has been posted the day after a meeting. Not since former Town Clerk Jodi LaCroix retired and moved to Tennessee. As usual, Gentz seemed unaware of what is really going on.

Jodi LaCroix has since become the town clerk for the town of Lakesite, Tennessee. Among the first things she did upon becoming town clerk was to sign up for Clerkbase coverage for her new home.

Last week, I asked Jodi about the process she used in Charlestown to make full use of Clerkbase. Here’s her response:

“As soon as I finalized my agenda, I sent the [Town Council] agenda and backup to Clerkbase via e-mail.  They then put it on their website for viewing, links and all.  This was usually done by the Friday before the meeting.  Clerkbase actually linked the backup to the agenda item.

“On the night of the council meeting, we turned the laptop on, linked to the agenda.  Each time a new agenda item was brought up, I would click the appropriate agenda item with the mouse. When the meeting was over, I would then upload or download whichever it was (I get the 2 confused) and then it was done.  Clerkbase then did their posting, which was the next morning. Anyone could then view at their pleasure and click the appropriate agenda item to view the backup.”

Please note how simple the process is…and the results – video up the following day.

The Platner revolution will not be televised

Jodi also noted that town sergeant Ray Dussault usually ran the video camera which meant far, far better video quality than that provided by the mini-cam mounted in the far corner of the council chambers. And Jodi says her fellow town clerks who use Clerkbase don't have the problems Charlestown is having.

The CCA bean-counters on the Council apparently felt it wasn’t worth paying Ray for his time to produce a video you could actually see, so now we rely solely on the mini-cam that produces video quality similar to what you would expect if you were watching meetings through a small telescope on Mars. That’s if any video gets posted at all. Bring back Ray-TV!

Message from Jodi who says it really does snow
in Tennessee

I really wanted to see the Clerkbase of the Planning Commission’s December 19 because that was the night they would get serious about the two proposed affordable housing developments being advanced by the non-profit Washington County Community Development Corp. 

One is the ChurchWoods project, affordable rentals for the elderly on property owned by the Episcopal Diocese in the heart of Charlestown’s downtown. The other is the Shannock Village project, aptly located in Shannock.

The CCA candidates – except for George Tremblay – made a big public display of supporting these two project before the election, but I have been predicting that as soon as the election was over, they would kill them both. The December 19 Planning Commission meeting was Act One in that plan.

George Tremblay signaled which one they would go after first – ChurchWoods – in his bizarre and completely unsubstantiated attack on senior citizens’ affordable housing. Sure enough, according to the able reporting of Dave Pepin of the Westerly Sun, the Commission heard three and a half hours of NIMBY attacks against the project, and adjourned without finishing the discussion or taking a vote.

Shannock Village was never even discussed. At the January meeting, I expect the CCA to roll out all of its big guns to kill these projects it bragged about before the election.

You should read Dave’s well-written story in the Sun for the details. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your point of view), you won’t read those details in Progressive Charlestown because the meeting was blacked out. Dave’s a good writer, but he can’t do snark in the Sun. Which is one of the reasons why more than 1300 people a day read articles in Progressive Charlestown for a not-exactly-mainstream point of view.

According to an e-mail from Acting Town Administrator Pat Anderson, “The December 19th meeting apparently was not recorded on Clerkbase.  A microphone wire was moves [moved?] and must have pulled the fire wire that is necessary for the recording.  Ashley and Amy have spoken with Ken about purchasing a stationary unit so future meetings will be recorded.” 

If you look through the Planning Commission on-line minutes, you'll see missing Clerkbase recording occurring off and on for at least a year. At what point will this problem be seriously addressed?

I noted to Pat that it made little sense to me to pay for this system and not have it work. Pat's reply: "I agree."

According to Town Clerk Amy Weinreich, “The video of the Planning Commission’s Nov 28^th meeting was not captured. There is an audio recording of the meeting available through the Planner’s Office.” 

Hey, let's all go into Ashley's office and sit there and listen to a three hour tape recording. Or better, why not put those audio recordings on-line? Again, what's the point of having the Clerkbase system if it doesn't provide the on-line access it's supposed to provide.

What I’d like to know is why the problem of no recording only seems to happen at Planning Commission meetings. And why does it take several days or even a week to post the video for other recorded town meetings when Jodi used to post it the next day?

The CCA's candidates campaigned on a platform of “open and transparent government” during the last three election cycles, yet their actions are to censor town records, violate the Open Meetings Act and now render Clerkbase almost useless. Welcome to Bizarro Charlestown!

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[1] Clerkbase, for those of you who have never used it, is a subscriber service that many municipalities around the US use to make it easier for people to know what’s going on in local government. Clerkbase offers you agendas and minutes, links to documents and an audio-video capacity that allows on-line access to meetings. Click here to see Charlestown’s Clerkbase website. 

For shut-ins or people who can’t stand to sit in the town council chamber’s hard seats, or those who have to work for a living and can’t stay up until midnight, Clerkbase offers a practical alternative to staying engaged with town politics.