More Mischief Afoot
On July 3, 2006 the TAMPOA Board was to have another "secret" meeting, supposedly to talk with Attorney Bill Andersen. The announcement of that meeting made it clear that TAMPOA members (who pay for his services) were not welcome. The announcement contained a full agenda, including "New Business" and "Management." On a separate piece of paper, which members may have missed in the TAMPOA mailing, the Board announced that at the July 3rd meeting (under the items "New Business" and "Management") the Board will limit the access of TAMPOA members to TAMPOA records. Frequency of access will be limited to ONE request for access per month. Inspection of records will be limited to ONE 8 hour business day per month. In addition the Board intends to charge 50 cents per page for copying any records.
So say you're a TAMPOA member, want to run for the board, and want to go in to the TAMPOA office and review records (maybe the minutes of the past board meetings) to get yourself up to speed on what the board is doing (since you can't learn that from the infrequent and garbled newsletters or the infrequently updated website). And say you only have a month to do this. Well, you're out of luck. You get one request, and if you can't do inspect all the minutes you want to in one 8 hour week day (too bad if you have to work) you're out of luck. Isn't this a great way for incumbents to limit election challenges?
Imagine the difficulty you'd have if you thought there were financial irregularities and a group of you wanted to have an accountant inspect the books. So sorry, the accountant's one day is up. He didn't get through all the records? Too bad, come back next month, but be sure the accountant took careful notes, so he knows where he left off. Maybe the records will be there. Maybe they will have been "lost" or shredded (in "routine document disposal," of course). Accountant can't find where he left off or records are not there? Record inspection now too expensive? Too bad, guess you should have acted before July 3, 2006.
So say you're a TAMPOA member, want to run for the board, and want to go in to the TAMPOA office and review records (maybe the minutes of the past board meetings) to get yourself up to speed on what the board is doing (since you can't learn that from the infrequent and garbled newsletters or the infrequently updated website). And say you only have a month to do this. Well, you're out of luck. You get one request, and if you can't do inspect all the minutes you want to in one 8 hour week day (too bad if you have to work) you're out of luck. Isn't this a great way for incumbents to limit election challenges?
Imagine the difficulty you'd have if you thought there were financial irregularities and a group of you wanted to have an accountant inspect the books. So sorry, the accountant's one day is up. He didn't get through all the records? Too bad, come back next month, but be sure the accountant took careful notes, so he knows where he left off. Maybe the records will be there. Maybe they will have been "lost" or shredded (in "routine document disposal," of course). Accountant can't find where he left off or records are not there? Record inspection now too expensive? Too bad, guess you should have acted before July 3, 2006.
posted by Conchette at 8:04 AM
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