Electric City Weblog

Secrets, secrets, secrets.

Michael Noyes at the Montana Policy Institute has a great investigative piece up about government secrets. You might recall that Governor Schweitzer was touting the Fuhrlander Wind Turbine Manufacturing Facility as an economic boon for Butte-Silverbow. I’ve got no beef with the Governor there; it would be a good project for our state.

It seems, though, that the developer commissioned a $48,000.00 feasibility study. Of the $48,000.00, $45,000.00 was paid with tax dollars.

Nevertheless, when the study came out it was heavily redacted, including 20 full, consecutive pages.  Butte-Silver Bow Community Development Director Karen Byrnes, who is working with Fuhrlander to develop the project, apparently admitted that there was no public vote taken to keep portions of the study secret. She admitted that she does not know whether the redacted pages include trade secrets.

Butte television station KBZK picked up on the story, and you can watch the video here. The responses from Byrnes and Governor Schweitzer’s Chief Business Development Officer, Evan Barrett, speak volumes about the arrogance of public officials who are convinced of the righteousness of their own actions. Listen to Evan Barrett, as he says “we’re trying to figure out why they’re nosing into this. There doesn’t seem to be any particular purpose other than maybe derail a project.” In other words, the public should just stay out of it. If the public tries to exert its rights, then it is the public that is suspect: Let’s marginalize them by suggesting they’re against jobs for Butte.

Imagine if you were refused permission to speak at a public meeting with the suggestion that “you don’t have anything positive to add anyway…” Motives are irrelevant when it comes to exercise of one’s rights.

Byrnes, too, is certain of her position. “If they feel it’s damaging to their company, I believe it’s their right to be able to hold that back.” In other words, she isn’t concerned about the Montana Constitution, because she wants to do what she wants to do. In this economy, economic development is god’s work, don’t you know? It’s beyond question apparently.

The unusual and shocking thing about this story is the fact that it really isn’t unusual or shocking. We have been fighting similar issues here for years. City officials are so damn sure that their power business is in the public’s interest that they have no qualms about keeping the business from the public.

Perhaps the participants in such events simply cannot recognize the arrogance. Perhaps they really feel that what they are doing justifies a sidestep of the law, or a rationalization that ‘public secrets’ are legal.

Perhaps, though, they simply recognize the unfortunate truth that for all of our governments’ talk about openness, it really is not. Perhaps they recognize that despite a strong state constitutional dictate in favor of citizen involvement, nothing ever really happens when they keep secrets. Unless and until our legislature puts some teeth into Montana’s open records law, though, you can be sure that this will continue and the Byrnes and Barretts and Lawtons of the world will continue to act in secret.

Posted in Open Government, State Politics | 5 Comments »