Lower Merion commissioners keep ad hoc budget meetings private
By Cheryl Allison
The Main Line Times
The Lower Merion Board of Commissioners will keep its Ad Hoc Budget Committee, and it will keep that committee’s meetings closed to the public.
That was the answer to a citizen’s open-meetings challenge in a lengthy discussion Wednesday night.
It was a split decision, one that broke with painful clarity along party lines.
Commissioner Jenny Brown and her four Republican colleagues voted in favor of her motion to maintain the committee, but to open its meetings to citizens and the press.
All eight of the Democratic commissioners who were present – Commissioner Brian Gordon was absent – voted in opposition, allowing the proposal to fail.
The Ad Hoc Budget Committee, comprised of seven members of the board – one less than a quorum – meets monthly throughout the year with Township Manager Douglas Cleland and finance staff to study budget-related topics.
Last month, Bryn Mawr resident Audrey Romasco challenged its practice of meeting in private, saying that it may violate Pennsylvania’s Sunshine Act.
In response to the challenge, the committee cancelled its Feb. 18 meeting, but scheduled this week’s public discussion of the panel’s role and future status, and to determine whether meetings should be opened.
In her comments, Brown, who is a member of the committee, said she believes it has “gone beyond” its informal role of providing staff with budget “feedback” in the past year. Other Republican members said they wished to err on the side of transparency, and that virtually all of the committee’s activities could and should take place in public.
Democratic commissioners said the group has no authority to make decisions and does not engage in decision-making, but is needed as a “sounding board” for Cleland and staff to, as board President Bruce Reed put it, “explore topics that would not otherwise be explored.”
Most agreed that more discussions could be shifted to the public forum, but said that even the presentation of some ideas, insofar as they involve staffing options, could be upsetting to township personnel and destructive to morale.
Romasco, who has maintained that such general staffing discussions do not rise to the level of privileged personnel issues, eligible for discussion in private, said that she will attend the next committee meeting when it is scheduled and again request to be admitted.
If she is turned away, she said the next step would be to challenge the closing of the meeting in the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas.
The Main Line Times
The Lower Merion Board of Commissioners will keep its Ad Hoc Budget Committee, and it will keep that committee’s meetings closed to the public.
That was the answer to a citizen’s open-meetings challenge in a lengthy discussion Wednesday night.
It was a split decision, one that broke with painful clarity along party lines.
Commissioner Jenny Brown and her four Republican colleagues voted in favor of her motion to maintain the committee, but to open its meetings to citizens and the press.
All eight of the Democratic commissioners who were present – Commissioner Brian Gordon was absent – voted in opposition, allowing the proposal to fail.
The Ad Hoc Budget Committee, comprised of seven members of the board – one less than a quorum – meets monthly throughout the year with Township Manager Douglas Cleland and finance staff to study budget-related topics.
Last month, Bryn Mawr resident Audrey Romasco challenged its practice of meeting in private, saying that it may violate Pennsylvania’s Sunshine Act.
In response to the challenge, the committee cancelled its Feb. 18 meeting, but scheduled this week’s public discussion of the panel’s role and future status, and to determine whether meetings should be opened.
In her comments, Brown, who is a member of the committee, said she believes it has “gone beyond” its informal role of providing staff with budget “feedback” in the past year. Other Republican members said they wished to err on the side of transparency, and that virtually all of the committee’s activities could and should take place in public.
Democratic commissioners said the group has no authority to make decisions and does not engage in decision-making, but is needed as a “sounding board” for Cleland and staff to, as board President Bruce Reed put it, “explore topics that would not otherwise be explored.”
Most agreed that more discussions could be shifted to the public forum, but said that even the presentation of some ideas, insofar as they involve staffing options, could be upsetting to township personnel and destructive to morale.
Romasco, who has maintained that such general staffing discussions do not rise to the level of privileged personnel issues, eligible for discussion in private, said that she will attend the next committee meeting when it is scheduled and again request to be admitted.
If she is turned away, she said the next step would be to challenge the closing of the meeting in the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas.
