Our opinion: Legislator's accusations taking on a hollow ring

A Bozeman legislator's attack on a city commissioner's effort to drum up support for her position on the proposed sale of the city's sanitation division is naive at best.

"An elected official should be listening to public opinion, not orchestrating it," Rep. Roger Koopman said of City Commissioner Marcia Youngman.

Let's see, an elected official is, by definition, a politician. And a politician should not be orchestrating public opinion?

On what planet would that be?

At issue was an email that Koopman came by, in which Youngman sought to marshal opposition to a proposal to sell the city's garbage collection service to the highest private-sector bidder. The email addressed members of the Gallatin Valley Independent Business Association saying, "It's going to take a huge outpouring of public opposition in our public hearing ... to cause a positive change."

Also included with the email was a "fact sheet" of reasons for opposing the move and a note to "please don't say it's from me."

Koopman characterized Youngman's action as "manipulative."

Politicians seek office on a platform of positions on issues relevant to the office they are seeking. To expect them to abandon those positions and not actively rouse support for them once they win that office is disingenuous. It also suggests that elected officials somehow give up their rights to free speech once they assume office.

Youngman's mistake in the incident was to try to keep it secret. Courts have ruled emails sent by public officials are public documents, and Youngman should have made hers available for all to see.

Koopman has been calling a lot of attention to himself recently, notably at a Gallatin County Commission meeting where he called commissioners to task for a settlement they struck with a resigned chief administrative officer on the condition that terms of the settlement not be publicly disclosed.

If one were a suspicious sort, one might wonder if Koopman did this to discredit Commissioner John Vincent -- who has already announced plans to run against Koopman next year -- and get a little ink for himself in the process.

The other two county commissioners, both fellow Republicans with Koopman, are apparently suspicious sorts; they both say that's exactly what Koopman was up to.

Then there was legislation Koopman introduced in Helena earlier this year that called for death certificates to be issued for aborted fetuses. That certainly wasn't an attempt to "manipulate" opinion, was it?

Koopman has every right to speak out at public meetings when he wants to. But it would be nice if he would abstain from turning these occasions into political grandstanding.

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