A.G. Gancarski
A piece widely circulated Thursday from The Florida Times-Union makes the not-so-shocking statement that “not all of Lenny Curry‘s transition team meetings will be open to the public.”
No surprise there. Curry met with Mayor Alvin Brown not too long ago, and it was not open to the public. Should the meetings this week have been in a public forum? Or is there a point where people handling a transition as complex as that between mayoral administrations should be able to talk frankly about issues?
As David Bauerlein writes in the piece, “Sam Mousa, who is executive director of Curry’s transition team, has scheduled at least three days of packed meetings next week to hear from department heads and agency directors about their budget requests for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1.”
“These do not qualify as meetings requiring public notice based on legal guidelines,” Brian Hughes, Curry’s spokesman, told Bauerlein. “They are not open to the public.”
There are loads of opportunities for public input and access. As I type this, I am at Jacksonville University for the transition committee meetings. I just sat in on Blight. There was plenty of seating and the opportunity to ask Susie Wiles any question.
Such meetings and level of access are available to anyone in Jacksonville willing to drive up University Boulevard.
It’s legitimate to reach out to Mousa and ask him what transpired in those meetings. Certainly, public records requests can and will be made for his emails, also, to glean more perspective. There is by necessity more transparency in government with each technological advancement. Everything is documented, pretty much.
So Sam Mousa’s meetings with department heads aren’t open to the public. The fact is that the overall trend is toward transparency on a level that could not have been imagined when folks like Lou Ritter, Hans Tanzler, and Jake Godbold ran the city.
