After announcing his executive order creating a task force that would eventually implement carbon regulations, Jay Inslee assured the public that the task force would “conduct its business in an open, transparent manner, and its meetings will be open to the public.”
Not so. As SHIFT previously reported, after making his initial promise that his new group “will conduct its business in an open, transparent manner, and its meetings will be open to the public,” Inslee proceeded to hold Carbon Emissions Reduction Task Force’s first official meeting… without telling anyone prior to its start.
Inslee repeated his less-than-transparent method of leadership today. Inslee’s task force is scheduled to meet with a UK delegation for a “presentation on emissions trading and market mechanisms.” The meeting will be held at the SEIU Healthcare building in Seattle. When asked if TVW would be filming the meeting, the public access TV network said they “will not be covering the event since they aren’t logistically able to cover it at that location.”
A document describing Inslee’s task force reveals how the governor defines the term “transparency.” Under a header labeled “open meeting,” the document list qualifiers that include facts like meetings “will not be advertised” to the public and the taskforce “will not hold public hearing, and is not tasked with taking public comments during their meetings.”
It is becoming more and more apparent that, with Inslee, transparency and respect for open government has their limits.
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