• Citizen of The Year Equates $30 per month with 1% Sales Tax

    Earlier this week we reported that our City Council seems strangely opposed to putting city council meetings online. City Manager Bagby's comparisons are, well, you just have to watch the video. But here is a recap of reasons for not putting City Council meeting videos online are: 1. Citizens should just pay $15.89/month for City Cable Basic TV package rather than the city pay to upload it to YouTube.com 2. To upload to YouTube would essentially compete and take incentive of people to pay for City Cable 3. This might cause a City Cable rate increase. "A 1% sales tax isn't a significant cost but when you keep adding and adding, at some point Mr. Bach will be asking for

    Jan 29,
    - by Brian Becker

  • $30 Too Costly For Transparency Implies Citizen Of The Year Bagby

    ...let's, instead, conduct a $400 study! At Tuesday night's (1/22/2014) City Council meeting, Councilwoman Pearson requested that the Council move to post their City Council meeting videos online as well as the council packet which explains to the councilmembers in depth what each agenda item is about. Both of these requests are fulfilling her campaign promise for more transparency in our local government, and both of these requests are very good ideas. As reported earlier this year, Pearson has been posting City Council meetings under the YouTube handle TransparentLocalGov. The city is requiring her to buy copies of the Council's meetings on DVD at $30/month so she can upload them. What followed Pearson's request was comical from multiple points of view. Most

    Jan 23,
    - by Brian Becker

  • PB: Your Voice Can Still Be Heard — GREAT JOB!

    I wanted to wait for the Transparent Local Government group to upload the video of the City Council meeting so you could enjoy the dialog yourself. The discussion starts at the 1 hour and 11 minute mark on the video. http://youtu.be/TO8WIb-FY0o Thanks to the three citizens (Chester Pumphrey, Greg West and Jack Rushin) for their challenge of the new bill. For those that want the cliffnotes version here you go: The bill was going to limit how much time the citizens could speak without being on the agenda from 10 minutes down to 3 minutes. Mr. Pumphrey informed the council that the current ordinance gave the mayor the ability to limit the speakers to 10 minutes which is the de

    Jul 19,
    - by Brian Becker

  • Looking Back…Three Long Years…And Pressing On

    Our hearing in May marked 3 long years of our battle with the City of Poplar Bluff over Open Access to the Network. And today, June 7, marks three years since appearing before City Council my first time. I actually remember thinking, on my way to city hall, that once they understood what Bach had done, they would correct it. How's that for naive? One of the most remarkable achievements during this time was our second petition drive. Just over 3400 Poplar Bluff verified voters signed the petition. Our group of volunteers turned in over 700 change of address or new voter registration cards. 5000 Poplar Bluffians show up to vote for Governor each election. Under 1100 showed up in

    Jun 07,
    - by Brian Becker
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