City Back Away From the Microphone…
posted by on August 9 at 16:02 PM
Chris Leman is a longtime neighborhood and good-government activist who pushes relentlessly for more openness and transparency in government.
So you’d assume Leman would consider proposed legislation requiring folks who lobby the city to register as lobbyists a good thing, right?
Not so fast: Leman showed up to rail against the lobbying proposal at Tuesday’s public safety committee meeting, calling it a “surveillance” program that would allow the council to illegally track citizen efforts to communicate with government officials.
Well, not exactly. The legislation that put Leman into a paranoid freakout only applies to professional lobbyists and “grassroots lobby” groups (like the well-funded “grassroots” Monorail Recall campaign, which spent nearly $100,000 paying an out-of-town company to gather signatures) that spend more than $10,000 a year on their lobbying efforts. Somehow I don’t think it costs Chris Leman that much to ride the bus down to City Hall.
So, what's your point?
And you wonder why no one wants to run for City Council. These are the people who speak at the meetings.
Chris is a well meaning, earnest activist, but this being the first time you thought something he said didn't track is akin to acting shocked that Lindsey Lohan smokes crack.
Might there be any specifics as to what the law would require?
Paranoid freakout, on that ECB is an expert.
Leman is one of the reasons local government is slow. Seriously. Sometimes he is the main reason. They say one person can't make a difference? Oh, yes they can! They can make everything slow down to a crawl.
ECB, why not quote a line or two from the actual testimony instead of running a snide paraphrase?
Slip Mahoney's remark is well-made. I was reading this post and realized that while it knocks Chris Leman's conclusion, it doesn't give us a quote or a link to the legislation so that we can judge for ourselves.
Speaking generally, I'd generally trust Chris Leman's reading unless shown specifically where he is mis-reading the text. Of course I have no opinion in this case. But just because this is a slog doesn't mean it has to be sloppy and merely give us the conclusions as if this is FOX News (in your wildest dreams.)
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