An aide to Montgomery County Council President Valerie Ervin is blaming the last minute decision to cut TV coverage of Monday's artificial turf hearing on Councilmember Roger Berliner.
The abrupt change to the Cable Channel Montgomery schedule was first reported by the Parents' Coalition Monday afternoon, after a replacement committee agenda appeared on the Montgomery County Council web site just minutes before the meeting started. The original agenda stated that the 2:00 PM T&E/ED meeting would be televised live on County Cable Montgomery.
"Councilmember Berliner made the decision to stop the TV coverage," said Ervin aide Beth Sylvester, in a phone interview yesterday. "It was changed at the last minute." In a followup interview today, Sylvester added that the TV programming change was "due to a misunderstanding," but did not elaborate on the details of the misunderstanding.
Neil Greenberger, Legislative Information Officer for the Montgomery County Council and liaison to Cable Channel Montgomery, confirmed that the committee meeting was not televised solely because of a request by a council member. Greenberger would not say which council member made the request.
When asked why Berliner ordered the programming change, Berliner aide Susan Buffone said only that "changes sometimes happen." Berliner did not respond to a request for a telephone interview.
Buffone offered to provide an audio recording of the meeting.
No misunderstanding. Very clear. Councilmember and Environment Committee Chair Roger Berliner didn't want the public to be able to watch the discussion.
ReplyDeleteEspecially since he completely ignored the very real financial issues surrounding this multi-million dollar no-bid sweetheart deal procurement and skipped over those issues at the hearing.
No financial issues here in Montgomery County. Just raise taxes to pay for this no-bid procurement. No one will notice.