Big Sky and Little Airplanes

Big suprise — Another violation of Montana’s Open Meetings law by Gallatin Airport Authority. This time with their 13 August 2009 meeting. The public notice and agenda for this event was finally published in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle on Thursday, the day of the meeting. The following explanation was provided:

“DUE TO COMPUTER PROGRAMS THIS AGENDA WAS NOT PUBLISHED ON SUNDAY AND WEDNESDAY AS USUAL. BUT THE MEETING IS BEING HELD TODAY AT 3PM.”

Montana Code does not allow for public meetings if the government body had planned to announce the meeting, but didn’t. Law is that adequate notice must be provided. Period. Once again Gallatin Airport Authority chose expediency over procedure and ignored the clear intent of open government regulations. Of course, don’t ask the County Attorney to enforce this law — he finds it a minor oversight. Yeh, you try ignoring the law and see if you’re granted the same blind eye.

…And Gallatin County Commission keeps reappointing these clowns because of their competency?

“That’s the thing about government: The more it fails, the more power it accrues.” (–Steve Forbes, Forbes magazine, July 13 2009, page 15.)

This entry was posted on Monday, August 24th, 2009 at 4:12 pm and is filed under Gallatin Airport Authority, Gallatin Field, Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.