by Joe Wilhelm Jr.
Staff Writer
Words caused a disturbance of the regular meeting of the Legislative Subcommittee of the City’s Ethics Commission recently.
Those words were contained in the minutes from past meetings of the Legislative Subcommittee and its members were concerned that they were receiving minutes that had been “edited” prior to them having a chance to review them. The subcommittee decided to table the approval of the May 18 minutes until members could review the tape recording of the meeting to make sure the minutes contained an accurate description of the meeting.
“I want to know what is being changed before I get a chance to see the minutes,” said Braxton Gillam, chair of the subcommittee.
John Phillips, ethics liaison from the Office of General Counsel, said the minutes are an accurate depiction of the meeting.
“Nothing is being changed. Susan (Stewart) is typing them up based upon her notes and the tapes,” said Phillips. “Then I’m making sure she has them correct.”
Not satisfied with the explanation of how the minutes were presented to the subcommittee, Gillam communicated to Phillips his thoughts on how the minutes should be submitted to the subcommittee.
“I want the minutes to come to me as they are first drafted,” said Gillam. “From now on.”
Phillips was not sure if he could meet the new requirement.
“I will take your suggestion, under advisement, (to the Office of General Counsel) and see if it is legally possible,” said Phillips.
“It’s not a suggestion,” replied Gillam.
The problem stemmed from different techniques used to present a written record of the minutes, according to City Ethics Officer Carla Miller.
“You have to have consistency with the minutes,” said Miller. “You either try to pick up everything somebody says and try to be verbatim, or you give more of a summary and rely upon the tapes. It’s one of the two.”
There were also problems with how the minutes were being summarized. A two-hour meeting of the subcommittee was condensed to two pages of minutes when the subcommittee heard complaints from citizens about how the City handled public records requests. The City’s Chief Deputy General Counsel, Cindy Laquidara, attended the March 11 meeting to discuss how the Office of General Counsel handled the public records requests for information on the renovations of Jacksonville Municipal Stadium and records pertaining to the Super Bowl Host Committee.
During the meeting she stated that the office “dropped the ball” and had too many people handling the request, which led to a slowed response. However, the minutes read, “Cindy Laquidara responded to the complaints on behalf of the City of Jacksonville and the Office of General Counsel. She stated she will recommend for future public records requests that a point person be assigned to the project.”
The subcommittee was concerned that Phillips was “editing” the minutes before submitting them for approval, and Phillips later admitted that he should have chosen a different word in reference to the minutes.
“Edit was not the right word to have used. The minutes are produced based on a tape,” said Phillips. “I have to review them for legal sufficiency, accuracy and to make sure that no information that is mandated to be confidential is disclosed in the meeting minutes.
“I’m editing in the sense that, if there is a grammatical error I am going to correct it. I used the word edit at the meeting and I wished I hadn’t. That’s not the right description of what I do.”
Phillips stands by his review of the May 18 minutes and believes they will be approved at the subcommittee’s next meeting in July.
“I believe those minutes to be a fair, accurate, comprehensive and a complete description of what happened at the last meeting,” said Phillips.
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