Matt Ready (2019): I,
I believe what we say in these meetings is important. The meetings that I
recorded, you were, we were not recording them.
Consultant K paid by M: So
now we are.
Matt Ready (2019): So
it was the only way. And there were very huge conflicts during those meetings
over that issue. So I just think we should clarify if that situation ever
happens again. Let’s not have that happen. Let’s know what is going to happen.
It’s either in order or it’s out of order.
Commissioner D: But
you also, if I may say so, You said earlier on, whether it was in order or out
of order, you were going to ignore the order-
Matt Ready (2019): Right.
Because it’s in order. It is in order. You cannot tell someone to turn
something off.
CEO MG: I think
you’re playing semantic games.
Commissioner K: Could
I ask a question Matt? So what, what would you recommend be written in here to
clarify that going forward?
Matt Ready (2019): I
just recommend that this board knows what it’s going to do with the situation
happens again because it’s not, we made a mistake, we might’ve violated a
statute [inaudible 04:50:05] by trying to tell someone to turn off the recorder
that I think that might’ve been a statute violation and we shouldn’t do that.
We should know. Okay. We don’t like it if someone’s recording but can’t, I
shouldn’t like harass them about it or it’s just like it’s either in order out
of order.
Commissioner Buhler (Board Chair): But
you could’ve made a copy of the, of the recording.
CEO MG: So so,
so here, here’s the issue is this whole thing was instigated by showing up at a
meeting and turning on your recorder.
Matt Ready (2019): What
whole thing?
CEO MG: Whether
we record the meetings or not because we weren’t, we did audio record them
before that. And so we call council and say, what do we do here? It wasn’t
really the will of the interest of the board to audio tape [inaudible
00:18:50]. We, that, that was not the norm with the work that we did when we
contacted all the [inaudible 04:50:59] districts. But you said, I’m going to
record them anyway and so and forced our hand. So then we put a policy together
that said we would record and with legal council’s advice, here’s how you do
that. So you can make sure that that audio record is a can that doesn’t face
the scrutiny of, of some members of our community who from time to time look at
the meta question of Alyssa about the authenticity of the recordings and, and
here’s the process, here’s the mechanics, here is the machinery. And we’ll do
that for regular meetings knowing that when three commissioners are meeting a
legislator’s office, that’s a special meeting. And, and now we just do that.
CEO MG: What
you’re talking about is when we have special meetings and sometimes those
special meetings include other representatives of boards that don’t audio
record their meetings. And sometimes those special meetings are, you know, in,
in places where may or may not be conducive to recording. And, and I think
you’re, you’re, you’re asking us to react to that when certainly, it’s my
preference that we follow the policy which records regular meetings. We don’t,
we don’t, and then therefore commissioners don’t, record on their own prior
special meetings and we just avoid all of this. I think the question or the,
the why of the road when you do this. I think this is actually what happened,
is that we just decided not to meet. That you commissioner colleagues were so
uncomfortable with that and probably had less to do with the issue or to do
with maybe other stuff around the issue that we won’t meet them. And that just
seems silly to me.
Matt Ready (2019): I
don’t see how do you want them… I would not take a position that wields power
if there’s people who are not accountable for what they say in the room and I
do not feel, you know, talk about trust. You know what increases trust is
having an account, but what people said because if you can’t, we have so much
trouble trusting each other on a basic level. I think we trust each other to
like remember accurately a three hour conversation. It’s insane. It’s like it’s
completely absurd that this board could function without an accurate record of
what we say. I mean I realized that after two months on the board, all I care
about is that we have efficient meetings when we talk about something and we
agree to it at the next meeting we remember we agreed to it and we don’t have
to revisit the issue.
Matt Ready (2019): I
mean that’s all recording does for him. I don’t know why we don’t record
offsite meetings except for the ones that other people would want to. If it
prevents us from meeting with legislators, that’s totally fine. We’re not going
to, and that’s why, that’s why I never insisted that we record everything
because then we wouldn’t be able to serve our community, wouldn’t be able to
meet with some people.
Commissioner D: And
that’s the case with the, when we were meeting with, with other organizations
that don’t record theirs, are not comfortable with that. It’s the same thing.
Matt Ready (2019): And
I never, I never insisted we record those. Some people might, but-
Consultant K paid by M: So I
think we should move on from this issue. I don’t think, I think it’s the
general opinion that there isn’t a need for a formal legal opinion. And as your
governance consultant, my recommendation is don’t rule that out of order if it
should come up because it would not be proper.
Consultant K paid by M: Should
we take a 10 minute break and then come back? We do have time in the afternoon,
so we’re off our agenda, but it’s okay. We’ll still get where we need to go.
