Editorial: Little Traverse meetings should be open to all
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Filed Under:
Opinion
"The Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indian’s government needs to learn the definition of an open government.
Recently, the tribe’s elections board released an opinion from its attorney that its meetings were open only to members of the tribe. This means only tribal members could attend a recent meeting where the election board verified signatures of a recall petition against tribal chairman Ken Harrington and vice chairman Dexter McNamara.
The problem here is that the tribe claims that it is an open government, yet it openly discriminates against non-tribal members.
In the United States, all government meetings are open to all members of the public, regardless of nationality or ethnicity. If a citizen of Mexico or Canada wants to attend a Petoskey city council meeting, then they can attend that meeting. The Petoskey city council, or any government body, cannot say an open meeting is open only to residents of that city or that country.
Sure there are government meetings that are closed. But they are only closed when they meet certain spelled out exemptions in Open Meetings law and they are closed to all members of the public, not certain members.
This is what it means to be an open government — you are open to all."
Get the Story:
Editorial: Open to all
(The Petoskey News-Review 3/10)
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