WPCNR MR. & MRS. & MS. WHITE PLAINS VOICE. September 27, 2007: As city hall and the citizenry have learned this week, the Common Council meets secretly to formulate policy. Though Councilperson Dennis Power did not exactly remember how he and Councilpersons Boykin, Malmud and Roach hammered out the anti-RFQ "opinion" they published one week before the Democratic Primary in the White Plains Times, the four councilpersons, constituting a quorum (majority of the council) obviously had to meet in some fashion to come to this detailed opinion.

WPCNR and City Hall also learned from the New York Department of State Committee on Open Government that this secret meeting was perfectly allowed, because they were formulating "an opinion," not a "decision," according to Assistant Executive Director of the Committee on Open Government, Camille Jobin-Davis. The key word is that the Democratic Councilpersons were referring to their deliberations, wherever and however they were conducted, as a "caucus" which is permitted as long as all meeting are of the same party, otherwise the meeting would have to be announced and the public permitted to attend.

Since this obviously is not the first time the council Democrats have said one thing in public, or not said it in public, and done another in public to derail administration policy, this raises this week's question:

Should the City Charter be amended to require caucuses of Councilmembers of the same party to be announced in the press and open to the public? Vote in the poll at the right.