Our View: Government needs to be transparent

The Havre Daily News is seeing an occurrence happening more-and-more frequently that it believes is a serious problem.

In any representative democracy — and certainly under Montana’s laws and Constitution — public elected and appointed officials are the servants of the public, not the other way around.

In the past year, some elected and appointed agencies have been deficient in letting the public know what they are doing.

A little more than a year ago, the local fair board hired a new fairgrounds manager without letting people know about what they would vote, what was the result of the vote, or even that they were voting.

After they were called on the unannounced vote, the board put it on their agenda and voted publicly — but only after they were called on it and, during the meeting, some members trounced the media for reporting on the illegal vote.

Now, in the past few weeks, the Hill County Commission has been voting on fairly high-profile issues without notifying the public. The commission voted to furlough or eliminate the fairground manager position without listing that issue on an agenda, and did the same with a proposal to completely reorganized the Hill County attorney’s office

Commission Chair Mark Peterson has said on several occasions that the county government is not trying to hide anything, the commission’s business meetings are open to the public and anyone can attend.

The Havre Daily News is not contradicting Peterson, but, the problem is, the impact is the same.

Many people work Thursdays — or whichever day the commission holds its business meeting, sometimes that varies — and cannot dedicate an hour out of every work week to go see if the county commission is voting on or discussing something of interest to them this week.

But if they knew an issue would be discussed and voted on, they might make arrangements so they could be there. The issue of eliminating the fairgrounds manager and reorganizing the attorney’s office both likely would have had some interested members of the public there — if they knew it was happening. A member of the county attorney’s office told the Havre Daily News she didn’t know the vote on that reorganization was happening.

Montana law makes it very clear that elected and appointed public officials have to let the public know so they can attend, comment and see the vote.

In a related issue, a member of a board told the Havre Daily News that a member of the commission told the board member it didn’t need to list an executive session to discuss applicants for a public position on its agenda. The Havre Daily News respectfully disagrees with that as well. While the public can’t listen to a discussion in executive session, the board has to list it — and the board can’t vote while in executive session, either. That has to be public.

The Havre Daily News hopes the local government holds true to its desire to allow public involvement. If the Hill County Commission is going to vote on a resolution, that resolution should be listed in its agenda — as the commission used to and as other bodies, such as Havre City Council and the Havre school board still do.

If residents in the county are not happy with how things are being listed, they should let their officials know.

If they still are unhappy, the next step is to take it to court. It then would be up to the court to decide if what the body did to publicize the vote was sufficient, or if it would void the vote and make the body publicize it and vote again.

The last step is up to the voters. If they are not happy with how public officials are listing their public matters, that step can be taken on the ballot.