Spending sprees better dubbed ‘Dancing in the dark’

What does County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani know that we don't?

At a Tuesday commission meeting, county firefighters unveiled a generous proposal to save the county taxpayers oodles of dough by agreeing to a devastating slash in salaries, expressing willingness to cut their contracted 3 percent cost of living wage hikes to a mere 2 percent, though they would still get step increases, of course.

In exchange for this munificent concession, all the firefighters ask in return is two more vacation days a year and an extension of the contract for two years.

What a deal! What a deal!

That 1-point pay concession would save the county $1.2 million a year, while staffing to cover those extra vacation days would only cost $1.3 million. A bargain for sure.

The firefighters appear to have cut the county management out of the herd and taken their fine proposition past the penurious managers and directly to the elected commissioners, most of whom have enjoyed the endorsement and campaign support of the unionized firefighters.

After hearing the firefighters' plan, Commissioner Giunchigliani declared, "It's a place to start," and said the commissioners need to give their direction. She plans to request that the commission discuss the offer as a personnel matter in a closed session on Aug. 4.

Why, sure enough the state open meeting law does, in fact, allow personnel matters to be discussed behind closed doors. It is very specific.

Nevada Revised Statutes list personnel matters among the exceptions to the requirement for open and public meetings. NRS 241.030 says "a public body may hold a closed meeting to: ... (a) Consider the character, alleged misconduct, professional competence, or physical or mental health of a person."

Perhaps the firefighters should ask Commissioner Giunchigliani what she is implying by calling for their money-losing proposition to be perused behind closed doors. Is she questioning their character? Is she implying that this offer constitutes misconduct? Is she raising the possibility that the firefighter union leaders are professionally incompetent? With all the gym time those guys get, surely she is not suggesting physical health problems. But mental health? Perhaps.

Have the firefighters been besmirched and defamed by the commissioner? Surely they will balk at a closed-door session lest these questions be left hanging like so much smoke in the air.

If I were the firefighters, I'd invoke paragraph 2 of the open meeting law, which says: "A person whose character, alleged misconduct, professional competence, or physical or mental health will be considered by a public body during a meeting may waive the closure of the meeting and request that the meeting or relevant portion thereof be open to the public."

What've they got to lose? Two more vacation days? Their reputations?

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Speaking of transparency, I was hoping someone would ask the question.

Christi Parson of the Washington Bureau of the Chicago Tribune obliged.

According to a transcript of Wednesday night's presidential press conference on attempts to "reform" health care, Parsons asked:

"During the campaign, you promised that health care negotiations would take place on C-SPAN and that hasn't happened, and your administration recently turned down a request from a watchdog group seeking a list of health care executives who have visited the White House to talk about health care reform.

"Also, the TARP inspector general recently said that your White House is withholding too much information on the bank bailout. So my question for you is, are you fulfilling your promise of transparency in the White House?"

So how did the president who promised from Day One the most transparent administration in history do?

Let's mark his scorecard 1 for 3.

After hemming and hawing, President Obama said he understood "We just sent a letter out providing a full list of all the executives."

Yes, but only after stalling and invoking "presidential communications privilege" and only after the watchdog group threatened a Freedom of Information lawsuit, did the White House comply by providing names of health-care executives.

As for broadcasting on C-SPAN, the president offered a nonresponse, saying there are a lot of meetings going on and "I don't think there are a lot of secrets going on in there."

On the TARP question, he was seemingly unaware of the testimony earlier this week by Neil M. Barofsky, special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Barofsky said the Treasury Department refused to even ask banks what they were doing with bailout money.

"It is a big program," Obama said. "I don't know exactly what's been requested. I'll find out, and I will have an answer for you."

Transparent as mud.

Thomas Mitchell is editor of the Review-Journal and writes about the role of the press and access to public records and meetings. He may be contacted at 383-0261 or via e-mail at tmitchell@reviewjournal.com. Read he blog at lvrj.com/blogs/mitchell.