Responding to residents concerned about confidentiality clauses in the Haines Borough’s agreement with lobbyist Bill Thomas, assembly member Margaret Friedenauer said at last week’s meeting that Thomas’ weekly reports should be public.
“It states in the (request for proposals), which is part of the contract, that there will be weekly reports. And I don’t see any reason that those weekly reports would not be included in the assembly packet and made public,” Friedenauer said.
Assembly member Mike Case said he generally agreed, but alluded to certain situations where the borough might want to keep its cards close to its chest.
“There is potential for specific situations where we wouldn’t want what he has to report known to everybody,” Case said. “Let’s say he found out there’s going to be a $300,000 grant given to some community in Southeast and there are certain precursors to that. We don’t want to put that on our report and somebody else gets it and gets our $300,000.”
Whether the assembly wants it known to everybody or not is irrelevant, Friedenauer said. “It’s not up to us. It’s dictated by state law,” she said before referencing the specific exceptions that would include health records, some law enforcement records, etc.
Case replied:“Perhaps we should just ask our lobbyist to be careful what he puts in the report so nothing would put us at a disadvantage.”