I like your recommendations Emmett. Especially the one about having Councilmember emails automatically and immediately available for public viewing. That would be a real breath of fresh air and openness.

Your suggestions add a lot to the discussion. Speaking as a councilman who blogs from a city up north, I'll toss in a couple thoughts:

- The biggest problem with the current way things work is that most of the people who leave comments to what I write, say, at a newspaper site, are anonymous. And you know what that does. I've got a thick skin, and I know to take anonymous posts in context. But some of my friends are just *horrified* at the kind of 'dialogue' that anonymous posting encourages. I don't blame politicans who are not used to this sort of thing from staying five miles away from blogging.

- The Lakewood City Council decided a long time ago that our emails are the equivalent of letters or memos, and thus disclosable. As a former newspaper reporter, I take some pride in us complying with the law, but there are also and were then other 'open government' advocates on the council.

I sure hope no one is suggesting council members anywhere are emailing each other during actual meetings, because that constitutes a part of the deliberative process covered by the open meetings act. To be honest, I haven't had time to dive into exactly what they are doing in Oly. What we do in Lakewood is that sometimes one of us will send a letter .. a memo .. in the form of an email ... to the other council members in between meetings with factual information and will write something to the effect of 'Please don't reply to this.' Because if council members deliberate by way of email outside of the public view, it violates state law.

- Lakewood is not Olympia, so again I don't know the atmosphere in meetings there, but I will tell you ... some very educated and enlightened people with long track records of involvement in the community will tell you they are offended when they see me typing on the dais. I personally find that reaction jarring, because I used to take written notes. I don't see a difference between typing on a computer and jotting down notes on paper. But with confidence so lacking in government, I've chosen to stop typing during meetings and no longer even bring my computer. I take written notes, and no one complains. Is that odd? Yes, to me. Do other people think my typing is odd? Yes.

This makes me sad, because it means I type less and thus communicate less with citizens on my blog. But I think building confidence is paramount, and if someone is offended by the sight of me typing, I have to take that to heart.