When right or wrong no longer works, maybe humiliation and money will.

During a nearly secret and unrecorded meeting held off county property in February 2011, the Johnson County Board of County Commissioners and without a recorded vote, abolished a long-standing county service of providing written transcripts of all official Commissioner meetings.  On March 3, 2011 NOlathe offered to pay the estimated $500 per week to continue this policy.  As seen here the county refused our offer making it clear their object was to prevent transparency and accountability.

During this debate we notified the county that without written transcripts they would be in violation of The Americans with Disability Act (ADA).  The county would be forcing the deaf community to listen to an audio recording of county business.  All to no avail, transcripts were recorded history.

Approximately three months later, Chairman Eilert through The Johnson County Sun newspaper announced he had just resolved a long time problem by providing Closed Captioning to the Video/Audio recordings and provide access by the deaf community.  This was previously posted on NOlathe as http://nolathe.net/2011/06/18/joco-bocc-chairman-eilert-you-are-a-liar/  Yep, one of many times I have referred to Overland Park’s hero as a liar.

With rumors afloat that the Commissioners have funded Transcripts for year 2014 intrigued me so I looked at each video from September 5, 2013 back to March 3, 2011.  In full disclosure looking at each video meant verifying there was a video/audio record (surprised to find many meetings lacked such) then randomly selecting some point well in to the meeting and view 30 to 60 seconds to wait for closed captioning.  Found several in late 2011 and early 2012 that had a rapid captioning too quick to read and the audio was silenced, those failed.  Here are the summaries by year.

2011- From March 3 through year end there were 143 meetings.  Of that only 32 (22.4%) included closed captioning.  Not counting the 52 meetings that occurred prior to Eilert’s announcement brings the 32 up to 35.2% ADA compliant.

2012- Total meetings were 129 of which 33 (25.6%) were ADA compliant

2013- Year to date there have been 87 meetings of which 14 (16.1%) were ADA compliant.

Conclusions- County Government under the Eilert Administration with concurrence by vote and/or lack of confrontation by the other commissioners combined with a County Manager nearing retirement and willing to do anything, continues our path to non-sovernity as a county, a state and a nation.

Actions- Folks often warn me about being too open.  But how do you launch a plan regarding openness and keep it a secret?  I believe the courts would consider myself and others that warned the county about these results as folks “with standing”.  Or we could get the Kansas School for the Deaf http://www.ksdeaf.org/ just down the street from our Emperor’s Palace to file a law suit for ADA Federal violations.  When right and wrong no longer works, maybe humiliation and money will.

Here are the results by year, by meeting.