Talbott Moves To Tighten Security After Leak Mayor Also Wants To Open Up Executive Sessions

Wed., Jan. 13, 1999

By Tracy Ellig tracye@spokesman.com

After a blowup over a confidential city memo that was leaked to the Wall Street Journal, Spokane’s mayor wants some checks and balances on the city’s secret meetings, known as executive sessions.

Mayor John Talbott has told the City Council he wants to preview executive session items and craft public summaries explaining what the items are and why they require secrecy.

Council members agreed that Talbott could have the preview and city staff will start briefing the mayor at 3 p.m. on Mondays regarding executive session material.

Talbott said he was concerned the executive session was abused during a December meeting held after council members learned of the leak.

“I believe the discussion we had about two weeks ago regarding the release of confidential material was a discussion that could have been held in public, at least the majority of that discussion,” Talbott said on Monday.

“I personally felt that during that particular presentation, I was the target,” he said. “I was, quite frankly, offended that anyone in this council would be a target or it would be suggested that they would divulge information that fell within the executive privilege.”

Last Friday, City Hall woke up to a front page article in the Wall Street Journal about the city’s involvement in the River Park Square project, a $110 million downtown shopping mall. The article included details of a confidential lease agreement between the developers and their anchor tenant, Nordstrom.

The paper got that information from a confidential city memo dated Nov. 20, 1997. City Council members were aware the Journal had the document and discussed it behind closed doors in December.

The leak still has them on edge.

“I don’t know who gave it,” Councilman Jeff Colliton said Monday. “That’s not important now. What’s important to me is that a breach of confidentiality, a breach of proprietary information was given from us. All roads are pointing to the council in this instance.”

To tighten security, the mayor suggested keeping minutes of executive sessions - something not currently done.

Councilwoman Phyllis Holmes suggested making only one copy of each confidential document and keeping it in the city attorney’s office. Council members would only be allowed to read it there.

The council took no action on either proposal. But the whole discussion upset Councilwoman Roberta Greene.

“This is so sad that we are getting to this point,” Greene said. “You’re the mayor, we’re the City Council members and we are talking about not being able to trust one another with paper because it might be leaked.

“That is about as sad a state as a city can get into as I’ve seen in a long time.”

REMEDIES The mayor and council members talked about tightening security: Mayor John Talbott suggested keeping minutes of executive sessions something not currently done. Councilwoman Phyllis Holmes said leaks could be stopped if there was only one copy of each confidential document, which would then be kept in City Attorney Jim Sloane’s office.

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