I wrote recently about the Somervell County Hospital District board meetings now requiring that people who want to attend need to go through the main entrance of the hospital and get a *visitor* sticker. I have been told this is a requirement newly enforced. Seems to me that badges that are permanent should NOT be for people on the board, as they are not employees, but also visitors to the hospital. I have been told anecdotally that the board members do not necessarily park in front of the hospital, but on the side across from Best Value Pharmacy, so their trip to the board room on the second floor not only avoids the reception desk but is a pretty fast route. Why are taxpaying members treated lesser than a board member, who is only in that position by dint of being elected and, again, with the exception of Dr Vacek, is not an employee of the hospital.
Here is my opinion about how members of the public should be treated at a government meeting. First, it is OUR meeting. Yes, there are rules around who can participate and how (such as through public comments) in order to keep the meetings orderly, but treating participants differently than the board is peculiar. For example, generally, anyone is welcome to attend a meeting and do so anonymously. There is no requirement to speak up, on the other hand, so if a citizen wants to sit quietly and watch, why not? That is why, I am sure, the visitor procedure does not require that a person sign in at the front desk and the stickers themselves do not show the name of the person attending. But why *visitor*? That already sets up a distinction between those who attend and those who conduct. I have never seen that at any other government meeting in Somervell County. In the case of the commissioners court meetings, people come in and if they happen to know other people, make greetings or chat before the proceedings start. There is nothing to distinguish one person from anyone else in the room, and that includes the elected commissioners.
I started recording the meetings again at the hospital last month. One main reason I am doing so, when possible, is that the video is not being uploaded in a timely manner. Some years back, in 2017, Ron Hankins griped about the fact that the videos from the meetings were not being uploaded within a few days of the meeting. Here it is 2024 and I have had much the same experience and have been in the place of feeling like a nag because I would like to find the video online on the SCHD Youtube website to view. Now, I know what Sharla Wilson is busy and putting up the video is not a priority when there is so much else to do, so I have started doing open records requests for the video to be put online because at least that needs to be done within 10 business days. Why this matters to me is because if you are a member of the public and you want to see what happened at the board meetings and see for yourself, you cannot do it unless SCHD uploads the video OR a member of the public records the meetings. So I have been coming the last couple of months because I believe the public should be informed and relatively quickly after a meeting (Incidentally, it appears that Somervell County Hospital District has changed the settings on their own videos to not allow embedding of their videos on other sites; the only reason I can think of, frankly, for doing this, is to put roadblocks in the way of the public knowing what they are doing)
Incidentally, Ms Wilson has said that they are removing any videos older than a year from Youtube, although they are keeping the videos on their own storage devices so they can still be asked for. I asked if there was some cutoff limit of Youtube that prevented putting up years of video, and she said no, so this is entirely a choice of the SCHD to not do as other entities do (Somervell County Commissioners Court, for example, has audio that goes back several years and conforms to the state retention schedule.
I firmly believe that people need to be informed about what their government is doing or at least have timely options for same. I think I may be the only person from the public that has attended these last 2 meetings. There have been plenty of hospital employees and of course the board, but maybe people find it difficult to attend at noon or they just don’t want to spend their lunch time doing so. Having this information online on the Youtube channel is thus more than simply a nice service.
One other thing about the video I take versus the video recorded in the board room at the hospital. I stand with my camera so that I can point it at the presentations being given and displayed on the overheards (there are 2 monitors); ie, my recording it not static. I understand that the board room is going to have a fixed camera on one wall that will replace the one Wilson is bringing in now which is not only older, but on a tripod; she trains it only to show the board members so the presentations are not recorded. She said that she does not think that the new camera will be recording the presentations but it also sounds like, because she can manipulate the camera with an ipad, it *could*.
Back to what I think about meetings and being a *visitor* and I know I will sound crotchety for this, but I do not consider myself a *visitor* nor someone who needs to be thanked for attending an open meeting.
The distinction is this: Treated as a member of the public and therefore PART of the meetings as opposed to a visitor who needs to be thanked or called out. Two months ago a board member called out to and said “Welcome to our special guest”. But I am NOT a special guest, I am a member of the public like anyone else and I actually don’t like this type of thing. For one, doing so makes a distinction between the others in the room and me (or anyone else) as a *guest*. As the Texas Open Meetings Act says
Section 551.002 of the Government Code provides that “[e]very regular, special, or called meeting
of a governmental body shall be open to the public, except as provided by this chapter.
So, someone is not a *guest*, but being able to attend a meeting is a right for anyone.
At this last meeting, the same board member came up to me and said “Thank you for coming”. I again felt this was a strange thing to say. No one specifically invited me, save for the public notice anyone can read and I don’t need to be thanked for exercising my rights as a citizen. It implies there is a *host* or *hostess* but that is just not the case with a public meeting, the board members are not *hosts* showing hospitality by inviting people, yes or no, but it is the law. I told her I was not trying to be abrasive, but frankly, why not just say “Hi, glad to see you” as is done in other govt meetings. After all, I am not a vendor who was invited by the board to do a dog and pony show nor is recording the meeting their business in which they had a say about invitation. Anyway, I prefer, always, to just come in and record the way I want, as per my right in the Texas Open Meeting Act, quietly, without disruption.
