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Transparency is a term government officials love to lob out to the masses, but in reality hate to put into practice. Being transparent means being open and honest with your constituents on all matters; failing to disclose potential conflicts on an issue, or using age, gender and skin color as a smokescreen to hide your true intentions, does nothing but make a mockery of open and honest government.
Yet that's just what appears to have happened during Tuesday's meeting of Wheeling City Council. During that meeting, a rather routine agenda item -- the reappointment of four board members to the Greater Wheeling Sports and Entertainment Authority -- led Mayor Glenn Elliott to launch into a discussion over the lack of diversity on city boards. He said he wants more than just the same old faces on city boards, and led a coalition including Vice Mayor Chad Thalman, Councilwoman Rosemary Ketchum and Councilman Ty Thorngate to block the reappointments of current Sports and Entertainment Authority board members Rich Lucas of Main Street Bank, attorney Rocky Fitzsimmons, John Culler of Beyond Marketing and Karen Stakem.
We'll let the mayor explain his issue, in his own words: "As you look at the board, it's not exactly the most diverse entity," Elliott said of the Greater Wheeling Sports and Entertainment Authority. "It's mostly people over 50 -- I think there may be one person who is 46 on the board. Everybody is white on the board, and all but one is male. It's not a very diverse board that's charged with bringing in diversity, new shows and new types of events both to the Capitol Theatre and (WesBanco) Arena."
No one can argue that having a more complete representation of our city on all boards should be the goal. Council appoints members to city boards, so the power to do that already is in their hands. But instead, the mayor chose to impugn the current Greater Wheeling Sports and Entertainment Authority board members -- those up for reappointment and also those already on the board -- solely based on their skin color, their age and in the case of everyone except Ms. Stakem, their gender.
It's this simple, Mr. Mayor: That's wrong. Publicly advocating to replace board members based on nothing more than age, gender and skin tone is wrong. You should apologize immediately.
To make matters worse, following the meeting Elliott reached out to three of the current Sports and Entertainment authority members whose reappointment was denied Tuesday and told them they still had his support, and he would recommend them for reappointment at the next council meeting.
So what is it, Mr. Mayor? Does the city, in your words, have too many old white guys on its boards, or just not the ones you want? Why use race, age and gender as an issue only to later reach out to some of those you'd just disparaged and tell them they had your support?
"I reached out to those members who I felt were worthy of reappointments," Elliott said Wednesday after our reporter learned of and confirmed the correspondence from the mayor after the meeting. "No one should assume that their reappointment to any board should be automatic."
Frankly, that's how it should be. Elliott should have focused on that approach instead of choosing to go after all members of the Sports and Entertainment Authority.
The only member to whom Elliott did not reach out after the meeting was John Culler. If he wanted Culler off the board, the mayor should simply have spoken to him beforehand instead of using race, age and gender to justify seeking a replacement.
We should expect better from our leaders. There's no excuse for how poorly this was handled.
Again, transparency.