Call Waiting!

SB142, by Senator Howard Stephenson, passed the Senate on Monday. This bill requires that all publicly elected officials have their telephone and email addresses available to the public. This bill also makes a point that Community Council members are included as publicly elected officials. Moreover, the contact information of Community Council members must be made available on the school’s website and in a mailing to every household with a student at the school.

The arguments in favor of this bill are straight forward: we should have access to those who represent our interests. One of the concerns of those in opposition to this bill is that having personal contact information on a website, open to anyone in the world, would discourage volunteers from becoming candidates for their schools’ community councils. Individuals who want to lobby community council members for political purpose would be able to reach any and all members. The sponsor was adamant that the contact information be for each member directly and not be routed through the school or another person or organization.

I would not oppose having the contact information of elected members of Community Councils being made available to their constituents. Perhaps this could be done by posting email addresses on protected websites. I can get information about my child's grades on a website that I must log into. Only parents of students registered for school can get to this site. That might be a good place to post contact information of volunteer Community Council members.