Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 18, 1995 TAG: 9507190011
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
For starters, you'll likely get an answering machine. You know the drill: For such-and-such, press 1; for so-and-so, press 2; if you don't know such-and-such from so-and-so, please stay on the line and the next available human being will answer. (Dum-de-dum-de-dum.) Sorry, all our human beings are busy; please hang up and try again later.
OK, the same happens when you call most companies these days. The state, no less than downsizing, right-sizing businesses, is unwilling to pay people to answer phones when technology can do it. It's a fact of life with which all of us should make our peace.
That kind of programmed answering for state agencies is not what troubles us. It's when you're bounced here and yonder, eventually getting the so-and-so presumably in charge and in the know on the other end of line. You know he or she has, or should have, the information you seek. Yet what you hear is a lot of hemming and hawing until this individual decides whether answering your question may put his or her head at risk of rolling.
Finally: ``Sorry, I'm not authorized to speak with you about that. You'll need to talk to the assistant for such-and-such in the governor's office.'' Of course, it probably will be several days before this high-level nabob can return a call. For one thing, he has to call the same person that you were talking to, to get the information to give to you.
Gov. George Allen apparently does not think highly of the freedom-of-public-information concept. While he's certainly not the first Virginia governor to seek spin control, desiring to put his administration's workings in the best possible light, he has gone to excessive lengths to suppress the delivery of information and to intimidate state employees who should be willing and encouraged to communicate freely.
This siege mentality serves no one. Allen says he wants to reform state government. Yet, as any decent management consultant would tell him, organizational reform requires (1) openness and (2) gradual devolution of authority to the experts - that is, the people on the front lines. Allen is going in the opposite direction. Information is closely held and tightly controlled. Cabinet-level political appointees have almost exclusive authority to communicate with anyone outside the administration.
Some lower-level employees say they continue to feel they are under constraints not to talk even to legislators - though the administration says it has eased up on what appeared to be a gag order in this regard. In any case, many middle-management state officials feel they dare not share certain information with members of the public or the news media without explicit permission from the governor's intimate circle of lieutenants.
And not just sensitive political information is being kept under lock and key. Often the most basic facts and figures are withheld or made hard to come by, choked by red tape and risk-aversion.
Democracy, it has been said, should be conducted in the daylight. If Allen truly believes in government for, by and of the people, he'll loosen the mufflers. After all, state employees aren't there to serve the governor. They're there to serve the public.
by CNB