Let's talk about the minutes of the council meetings.
At one point we had detailed minutes of council proceedings. With audio CDs available for a fee.
Then, Vaught got involved with the movement by some, not all, but enough, of the city council to change that to summary minutes with audio available. Now, what was supposed to be summary minutes actually turned out to be action minutes, an even less informative method of a written record.
On his facebook page Vaught indicates that he was a positive force in getting the issue of bringing back detailed minutes. Well, in a way he was.
But, what happened when the issue came before the council committee (8/21/12)? Now, since we only had action minutes at that time basically only the final vote is recorded. Vaught was one of 4 councilmembers who voted against bringing back the detailed minutes. Since four others voted in favor, the item was moved forward to the council meeting of 9/10/12 with a "no recommendation" from the committee. If someone wants to listen to the audio of the council committee meeting of 8/21/12 it is available on the city's site. Listen to it and then make up your own mind if Vaught was in favor of reinstating full minutes.
At the full council meeting of 9/10/12 he did vote to reinstate the full minutes. Ironically, at various subsequent council meetings he has made negative comments about the costs of those minutes. But, I guess full minutes aren't as important as sending 8 people to Boston for a conference (when 4 or less would have been more than sufficient).
