If Spokane County Commissioner Todd Mielke is to be taken at his word – that the county embraces open government – then he and his fellow commissioners need to do a better job of getting that word out to county employees. That would include sheriff’s deputies.

When a citizen showed up with a video camera at a recent public meeting about widening Bigelow Gulch Road, a deputy and County Engineer Ross Kelley told him he couldn’t tape conversations. At an open public meeting.

Kelley and the deputy, who had consulted with a supervisor in the Sheriff’s Department, were wrong. The “two-party consent” law that prevents you from recording a conversation without the other person’s permission does not apply to public meetings.

Kelley and the deputy didn’t let a little thing like their lack of knowledge stop them from insisting that photographer Don Hamilton turn off the audio, however. Only when a private attorney explained that they were off base did they relent. Kelley thinks it was a “misunderstanding.”

It is troubling enough that public officials – one of whom has a uniform, badge and gun – would be so quick to bring the authority of government to bear on the basis of their own misinformation. It is worse that county employees, who presumably were present to meet openly with concerned citizens, were heard on tape saying they didn’t want their words recorded.

But what is most troubling of all is the prevailing county attitude implied by these events.

In any representative government, officials ought to plead for citizen participation in settings for decision-making and information about public policy matters. The default position should be one of openness.

At last month’s Bigelow Gulch Road meeting, however, officials started with the assumption that they should and could prevent interested citizens from making a record of the public’s business. They did this based on inadequate knowledge that they didn’t confirm before acting.

It’s worth noting that in another recent incident, a deputy approached Hamilton to quiz him about his credentials when he was trying to tape a county commissioners’ briefing – also a public meeting. Such a pattern suggests a bias toward secrecy and raises a disturbing question: Have similar tactics been used to discourage other citizens from recording open meetings?

According to Mielke, no one needs credentials to attend or record a commissioners’ meeting. Open meetings are open, he insists.

That’s comforting, but it won’t mean anything unless the message is communicated clearly and forcefully to all county employees.