Chuck Turner and open government

By Dan Kennedy

Embattled Boston city councilor Chuck Turner emerged this week as an unlikely champion of open government by refusing to allow his colleagues to decide his fate behind closed doors.

Council president Maureen Feeney had called for an executive session to discuss federal charges against Turner alleging that he had accepted a $1,000 bribe in return for his help in obtaining a liquor license. Feeney appeared to be invoking a section in the state’s Open Meeting Law that allows for an executive session in order —

To consider the discipline or dismissal of, or to hear complaints or charges brought against, a public officer,

Turning the First Amendment on its head

By Dan Kennedy

Robert Ambrogi has posted a 36-page section of the report ordered up by the Boston City Council as part of its crusade to get out of having to comply with the state’s open-meeting law. Ambrogi’s comments are on the mark, especially with respect to the councilors’ argument that the law impinges upon their own First Amendment rights:

How does that saying go about the devil reading the Bible to his own ends? That was all I could think of as I read a report arguing that the First Amendment gives Boston city councilors the right to conduct the people’s business behind closed doors….

The … premise is that this “prohibition” on private speech between public officials violates their free-speech rights. That is the most extreme contortion of the First Amendment I’ve ever heard or read.

Ambrogi concludes with a hope that councilors will send the report “straight to the circular file.” But that’s only going to happen if the press and the public pressures them to do so.