Supervisor Rich Gordon bans the public and media from Mavericks meeting

Supervisor Rich Gordon should reverse his decision to prohibit the media and the public from the Feb. 22 Mavericks Surf Contest meeting.

Clay Lambert, editor of the Half Moon Bay Review published a refreshing request for transparency and accountability on the Reviews blog today:

Closing Mavericks public safety meeting is a very bad idea

Half Moon Bay Review: Feb. 19, 2010: by Clay Lambert

Monday morning, several agencies responsible for public safety on the coast plan to convene in the Coastside substation of the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office to discuss last weekend's Mavericks Surf Contest and ways to avoid an even worse calamity next time around.

They don't want you at that meeting.

We asked the Sheriff's Office and Board of Supervisor President Rich Gordon for access to a meeting that could hardly be more important or newsworthy. Gordon declined through a spokesman. Undersheriff Carlos Bolanos told us the public shouldn't be at a meeting of public agencies because it was a "critical incident debrief." Let him explain that one himself:

"The purpose of a critical incident debrief is to allow all parties to openly and candidly discuss what did go well and did not go well and to do that in nonthreatening environment," he told reporter Greg Thomas. "When members of the public and/or the media are there typically people won't be as candid as we need them to be to ensure the debrief is as clear as possible.

"If there is someone there from the media then the purpose is compromised because people won’t be as candid as they would be..." he said.

We agree that the incident and subsequent meeting are critical. But similar meetings have occurred after previous contests. Monday's meeting is business as usual rather than something spawned by a single unusual event. To call it a "critical incident debrief" is just Orwellian doublespeak.

Furthermore, past such private meetings have failed utterly to produce a plan capable of keeping thousands of visitors safe. The public has a right to know what their public servants are doing to change that fact in the future.

There is no reason for anyone to be less than candid just because the public is watching. If Bolanos is correct, we might as well do away with Congress, the state Legislature and, for that matter, the First Amendment.

OK, rant over. Forgive me a little righteous indignation. Public servants should do their business in public unless there is a compelling reason not to. And an inability to be candid when people are watching is no such reason.