‘Sunlight Is the Best Disinfectant’
Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” a well-known quote from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, refers to the benefits of openness and transparency. I invoke this quote often as executive director of the NYSSCPA, to illustrate that the most credible and respected organizations operate in an atmosphere of avowed openness. We should not only accept criticism and suggestions, we should embrace them. If questions from constituents, the public, or the media make leaders or other responsible parties obfuscate, the questions are usually valid and the answers are not. People who feel uncomfortable under the bright light of scrutiny and criticism often have something to hide.
Louis Grumet,
Executive Director, NYSSCPA.
You might wish to look at democracy.middlesbrough.gov.uk/aksmiddlesbrough/users/public/admin/kab12.pl?cmte=CSN&meet=1002&arc=71
Please note also that my election campaign last time out was based in large part on opening up the town hall to scrutiny and installing cameras into every meeting that did not breach personal privacy- broadcasting in an open way holds no threat to decent people engaged in honest practices that serve the public interest. I see no arguments for secrecy.
If you have any difficulty with the link it is the constitutional committee 9th August 2013 – as far as I know, it was never acted upon. Mike
Hi Mike,
Thanks for getting in touch. The only people who are all for keeping the meetings away from public scrutiny are those with something to hide. Sadly, these are the same people in control of the town, Mayor Mallon, his Labour-heavy executive and the Labour Party councillors who support their actions. I’m aware that there are also a few non-Labour councillors who unfailingly support the decisions of the mayor and his executive. Maybe they would rather that this doesn’t become wider public knowledge and hence, they support the filming ban which diminishes their public accountability.
When the Gazette ran this story online via FaceBook, one commenter made a very good point.
“When we complain about CCTV we are told by them [the council] that if we have nothing to hide, we have nothing to fear”.
Funnily enough, the Gazette appear to have removed the item from their FaceBook page now.
But the commenter makes a valid point. At best, the imbalance between the councils rights to film in a public place without consent of the public and the publics right to film in a public place without the consent of the council does seem unjust.
At worst, it smacks of a Big Brother state where those elected to represent us take it upon themselves to assume the role of rulers.
We have less than a year, Mike, before the next local elections. Those that oppose the current regime need to put aside their political differences in order to work together to offer the people of the town a coherent, plausible alternative to the status quo. We need to convince the people of Middlesbrough that the future of the town lies down a different path to the one we are on and that the only way that anything can change is if they vote for it to change. Only a fool would underestimate our local Labour Party. Labour are a very well organised party and, even though they are in more financial debt, nationally, now than they have ever been, they still have a depth of voluntary support they can call upon to propagate Labour votes on the doorstep, even if they don’t have the tens of thousands of pounds that they usually throw at their election campaign.
We need to stop sitting on our hands, get organised, get unified and get the message out there. Or it will be more of the same for Middlesbrough.