Deciding what issues to address is a very important political power.  City Hall observers have always wondered who decides what gets on the Council’s agenda.  In general terms issues wanted by the mayor and the establishment get on the agenda and those matters they prefer to ignore are left out.  The only real exception to this in recent years has been Ward 4 Councilmember David Wiechman’s attempts to make motions under general business.  However this is usually shot down by the mayor with the explanation that Wiechman did not submit his issue to the Council “officers” before the meeting.

This subtle but effective instrument of control was exposed to scrutiny recently when the Colorado Freedom of Information Coaltion did an expose on Lakewood’s practice of deciding agendas outside of an official public meeting.  Colorado state law, the Open Meeting Act, requires all government decisions be made in a legal meeting with advance public notice, public access and proper minutes.  The purpose of the law is to allow citizens to observe how decisions are made and how their representatives vote.  By polling Council members individually in secret, the establishment is able to kill undesirable motions without the public’s knowledge.

The Council’s common practice of taking informal votes on agenda issues  was exposed when the inexperienced new Council President, Ward 3’s Shakti, made the mistake of secretly tallying ALL the Council members, including even the independents which have been traditionally left out.  She compounded her mistake by recording her vote results in writing and then emailing the vote results to another Council member.  When the Council reformers learned of the secret voting, the poll results were then emailed to other Council members and eventually leaked to the press.

In typical fashion the local media focused on the practice of emailing the vote results instead of focusing on the actual violation of taking a secret vote.  The Council responded by promising to look into new ways to determine agendas.  If the past is any guide there will probably be a cosmetic pronouncement that Council will do better in the future and in the meantime, they will get more skilled at covering their tracks.