Des Moines Register. April 4, 2017
Keep 911 calls open to serve the public
Most of us rarely feel the need to call 911 and summon the police, the fire department or an ambulance crew. But when we do, it’s typically a critical situation that serves as a test of whether our emergency services are responsive to the public’s needs.
That’s why civil liberties groups, government oversight organizations and the news media oppose a bill in the Iowa Senate that would keep secret many of the calls citizens make to 911.
The bill, which has already passed the House without a single dissenting vote, seeks to treat all 911 calls involving injuries or medical conditions as confidential “medical records” that are exempt from disclosure under Iowa’s Open Records Law. The secrecy would apply not just to the audio recordings of 911 calls, but also to transcripts and to any video recordings of calls.
What’s more, calls that are either made by a minor or pertain to a minor would also be kept secret. It’s not at all clear what would happen in cases where an adult calls 911 to report a crime and, as is typically the case, the involvement of minors has yet to be established or ruled out. It’s possible that the mere potential for a minor to be the subject of a 911 call would result in the vast majority of such calls being kept confidential, at least initially.
It’s also not clear whether anonymous 911 calls, in which the age of the caller is undetermined, would be forever sealed. (911 systems can pinpoint the location of a call, but not the identity of the person making that call.)
Sen. Jake Chapman, a Republican from Adel, says the bill is intended to protect from disclosure “anything that would be linked with audio or video” of a 911 call, including video from body cameras or security cameras at emergency-dispatch centers. “We have an obligation to our constituents to make sure we’re protecting their medical information,” he says.
The trouble with this reasoning should be obvious: When people call 911, it’s not to relay their medical history to a dispatcher, it’s to request assistance. In the course of that call, they may very well tell the dispatcher someone has collapsed, is suffering chest pains, was shot or stabbed, or is behaving erratically.
But if that constitutes a “medical record” that must be kept confidential to protect Iowans, will the Iowa Legislature next attempt to seal from public view all police reports and court records that refer to injuries and deaths that stem from assault, domestic abuse, police shootings, rape and murder?
This ill-conceived bill was introduced because of three accidental shootings in Tama County that killed and injured adolescent girls. Tape-recorded 911 calls revealed that in one of the cases, a vocal gun-rights advocate accidentally shot and killed his 13-year-old daughter while attempting to show her a rifle - a fact the police never made public. After Tama County’s emergency management coordinator released the 911 recordings in response to a formal request from the Associated Press, she complained to her state lawmaker that such disclosures invaded the privacy of families and asked for a change in the law.
If anything, the Tama County cases should serve as Exhibit A as to why these recordings should remain public. As tragic as those cases are, they involve shootings that are deserving of public attention, if only so local police, prosecutors, educators, counselors, hunting organizations and gun-safety advocates can take steps to ensure there aren’t more fatalities in the months ahead.
If Iowa’s 911 calls are kept secret, the public may never learn of violent crimes in which no arrest was made, no report was filed, or no officer was dispatched. There will be no way to document what information an officer was given, or was not given, in responding to a call that later resulted in a police shooting. There will be no way to ascertain whether dispatchers acted appropriately in handling calls from citizens. There will be no way to determine whether ambulances were tardy in responding to a call.
Iowans have a right to medical privacy, but they also have a right to know whether the police and dispatch agencies in their community have the expertise, the staff, the equipment and the resources to handle life-and-death calls for assistance.
As demonstrated by decades of past practice, those rights are not in conflict with each other. Both can be protected, but only if 911 calls remain open and accessible to the public.
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Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier. April 4, 2017
Cutting red tape with a blue ribbon
To borrow a phrase from “The Godfather” movies, Waterloo City Council member Steve Schmitt has made Mayor Quentin Hart an offer he thinks Hart can’t refuse - creating a government efficiency task force.
Schmitt asked Hart for permission to form a committee of residents to review city operations to determine if services could be outsourced, combined with other local governments or provided in a more cost-effective manner. It tripped off a lively debate between the two.
“I’ve talked to a number of current or retired business folks, a number of city workers, a number of people who would be interested in doing this,” Schmitt said. “I don’t see the downside to this.”
Schmitt compared it to a Blue Ribbon Task Force created in 2005 to review county government operations, a committee on which he served prior to becoming a council member. Schmitt suggested the three councilmen not up for re-election this year - himself, Bruce Jacobs and Jerome Amos Jr. - serve on the panel and recruit other members.
“I just see it being a completely nonpolitical, nonbiased chance to look and see what we’re doing right, what maybe we could do better,” he added. “Maybe we’ll discover we’re just picture perfect.”
Hart said city staff already are working on internal plans to streamline city government, while separate committees are working with local schools, the county and Cedar Falls on ways to share services.
He took issue with what he saw as Schmitt’s assertion the city wasn’t already working to manage its budget.
“To say that the city is not taking a look at finances or there’s nothing that’s being done to take a look at the budget gives the perception to people that we don’t deal with money or we don’t deal with efficiencies . or we don’t think about that the entire year,” Hart said.
Schmitt said he didn’t intend to cast aspersions on city staff.
“But I do think there’s a certain number of our city staff that have never worked in the private sector,” he said. “I don’t think they have the perspective that some of us do that have been in the private sector and that understand when you can’t meet your budgets you can’t just turn around and go back to the taxpayers. You have to make some changes.”
The back-and-forth ended with Hart saying he wasn’t sanctioning the formation of a task force.
“You can go and meet with whoever you want to,” he said.
There is some precedent for “blue ribbon committees” in city government. Mayor Bernie McKinley appointed several during his administration in the 1980s and early ’90s on a number of topics. He also had a citizen budget review committee. Frequently he put some of his critics to work on those bodies in areas of interest to them.
However, those appointments were made by the mayor. They weren’t delegated to a council member.
We think if Mayor Hart entertains the idea of such a committee, he should pick who serves on it. And we would respectfully suggest no sitting elected official should serve on it. Maybe a former elected official or two or retired staff member with a working knowledge of the city.
If it’s going to be private sector, it should be private sector all the way.
The mayor shouldn’t necessarily reject Schmitt’s proposal out of hand, if for no other reason than to follow another adage from “The Godfather” - keep your friends close but your enemies closer.
Who knows? Maybe such a group will produce something the mayor and Schmitt, the unofficial leader of his loyal opposition, can agree on.
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Quad-City Times. April 7, 2017
Don’t let school equity bill rot - vote
Up or down: give it a vote.
Few cases of legislative inaction would be more craven than denying the school equity bill a floor vote in the Iowa House. Not a single member should leave Des Moines until going on-record and owning their support - or lack thereof - for legislation that would end funding discrimination for hundreds of Iowa public schools.
The school equity bill is turning green in the Iowa House Appropriations Committee. It’s no surprise. Iowa’s GOP-run government faces mounting revenue shortfalls, self-imposed wounds resulting from years of tax cuts that disproportionately favor the well off.
Gov. Terry Branstad reacted by proposing deep cuts to important programs. Lawmakers responded Wednesday by driving the scalpel into bone. The Legislature’s draft budget is almost $39 million short of Branstad’s already draconian figure.
And so, Senate File 455, which would finally right the systematic classism in state school funding, sits there turning stale. It’s just as predicted by a slew of House members representing the Quad-Cities. It’s precisely the kind of gutlessness and commitment to ideological dogma that got Iowa into this mess in the first place.
Some House members blamed the state Senate, including Davenport Republican Roby Smith, for sending the 10-year, $204 million moral imperative to the House without a funding stream. Others said they support SF 455 in principle, but not in practice. Democrats have lampooned its 10-year roll-out, a recipe for repeal, they say.
Everyone’s looking for political cover. But thousands of students - in places like Davenport and Maquoketa - don’t care about the rhetoric and finger pointing. Their sole interest is equal treatment under the law, one that now values their education less than neighboring districts.
No doubt, there’s significant political motivation for letting SF 455 rot in Appropriations. There it could languish without action. There it could die without much notice. There it could sit and no House member would have to vote against basic fairness.
The legislative session is rocketing toward its scheduled April 18 end. Republicans, now in total control of Iowa, have wasted metric tons of oxygen on so-called “moral” issues. They’ve fast-tracked ideologically acceptable bills far more complicated than the school funding fix, such as the collective bargaining overhaul. And yet, they’d rather let student equity die on the vine out of political expedience.
On Sunday, Davenport Community School District Superintendent Art Tate called for an up-or-down vote in an op-ed. Tate, the man who’s put his career on the line for this cause, highlighted the widespread effects of 40-year-old policy that funds some schools around $170 more per-student than others.
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Dubuque Telegraph Herald. April 7, 2017
Quality candidates vitally important
When people’s conversations turn to “the election,” it is usually in reference to that quadrennial spectacle that decides who will occupy the White House. The importance of the presidential race is evident.
However, when it comes to how individual Americans might have the greatest impact on their own lives and those of their neighbors, there is no beating local elections.
Who steps forward to seek office, who wins election and how the victors make judgments are vitally important on the local level - and those factors can be decided by relatively few people.
In a few months, just before voters choose from among names on the ballot, we will encourage - or implore, shame or beg - citizens to study the candidates, show up and vote in their local elections. Just one vote can - and has - decide outcomes.
Until then, however, each community needs names to go onto those ballots.
This being an odd-numbered year, Iowa will host two such local elections in 2017. Voters will decide representatives on their school boards and city councils.
Three Dubuque School Board seats (currently held by Craig Beytien, Jim Prochaska and Terra Siegert) will be decided Sept. 12.
Four seats on the Dubuque City Council, including the office of mayor, will be on the Nov. 7 ballot.
We already know that there will be at least two new members joining the council in 2018 because Kevin Lynch (Ward 1) and Joyce Connors (Ward 3) say that they will not seek another term. The other two members whose seats will be on the ballot, Mayor Roy Buol and At-Large member Ric Jones, have yet to announce their plans.
The filing periods are months away, but candidacy - serious candidacy, at least - should not be a spontaneous, knee-jerk or last-minute decision. It requires thoughtful consideration and, as it relates to other commitments - one’s family and regular occupation, for example - appropriate communication and deliberation.
In his farewell speech as president, Barack Obama made the case that the most important person in government is the citizen.
He continued:
“Citizen. So, you see, that’s what our democracy demands. It needs you. Not just when there’s an election, not just when you own narrow interest is at stake, but over the full span of a lifetime.
“If you’re tired of arguing with strangers on the Internet, try talking with one of them in real life.
“If something needs fixing, then lace up your shoes and do some organizing. If you’re disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clipboard, get some signatures and run for office yourself.”
Whatever your opinion of Obama and his presidential legacy, let’s hope that people of all political persuasions will agree with him on that. Democracy runs on the fuel of citizen buy-in and citizen involvement.
So, if the thought for serving your community on a school board or city council has crossed your mind, this is the time to seriously wrap your mind around it. Decision-time is fast approaching.
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