The Missouri House Government Oversight and Accountability is holding a hearing today at noon on the economic impact of a proposed St. Louis Rams stadium, but not on whether a new stadium would be a good idea. As committee chair Jay Barnes wrote in his weekly newsletter last week:, R-Jefferson City. House Speaker John Diehl, R-Town and Country, asked Barnes to analyze the stadium’s costs and benefits.
In his weekly newsletter, Barnes called his committee’s work “a limited inquiry that will not reach whether government should finance a new stadium. Just because something may profit the government does not mean it should be done.” Yeah, I don’t get it either.
You may not watch the hearing online, because the Missouri legislature apparently does not do such things for committee meetings. (Its video archives page consists almost entirely of Microsoft Word files.) In fact, its website warns that “Notice of the intent to audio or video record all or any portion of a committee proceeding must be given to the Chairman of each committee in advance of the hearing,” so don’t even think of having a friend sneak in there with a tape recorder, either. If anything important happens, just trust that the Missouri legislature will tell you.
Do you have to intend to do it? That seemingly leaves the door open to accidentally hitting ‘record’ on some sort of audio or video device. I mean if they’re going to bother to get all specific with their language in an attempt to get around having an open government, then someone might feel obligated to exploit that language.