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Fiddling, and surfing the Web, as Rome burns

By SUE CARLTON
Published March 3, 2006

There's a very useful saying: Sometimes it's not what you do, it's what you do next.

Those Pasco County commissioners caught waist-deep Web surfing while they were supposed to be paying attention at public meetings almost got the second part right. Almost.

Times reporters Garrett Therolf and Matthew Waite detailed three years of embarrassing Internet use by Commissioners Ted Schrader, Steve Simon and Pat Mulieri - embarrassing because they did it during commission meetings, sometimes when people were standing before them expecting to be heard.

Mulieri checked e-mails. Simon looked at eBay and golf sites. Schrader, far and away the most frequent flier on the keys, checked stocks, travel sites, even snow conditions at a Colorado ski resort.

Can't you picture people there to talk about zoning and budgets and such, assuming all that typing and mouse clicking must be their elected officials doggedly researching the issue at hand? Who would have thought one of them might instead be, oh, considering the latest in titanium golf clubs?

Some of us can relate. Ever been sitting at your computer with a phone in your ear, listening to somebody jabber about boring work stuff while the Internet beckons? You itch to open that e-mail, book that plane ticket, check the weekend weather. So off you go surfing, careful to keep half an ear on the conversation so no long seconds of silence expose you. You type very softly.

That brand of multitasking is a little rude. In the case of commissioners at public meetings, it's something much worse.

Yes, those meetings can be long and deadly dull. Some speakers are fatuous and irrelevant. But listening to them falls under the category "part of the job." Constituents deserve no less than their elected officials' undivided attention.

At one point, the Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender's Office was asking for money for mental health services for the poor while Schrader was checking the stock market. Maybe by some superhuman feat the man can concentrate on both at once, but it doesn't paint a pretty picture in terms of public confidence, does it?

To give credit where it's due, Simon and Schrader both said they regretted the computer use. Schrader spoke of getting the public's confidence back. Simon temporarily disabled his Web browser. He told me much of his Web use was for legitimate research and that he had not ignored anyone who appeared before him, but he also said, "Even the few times I looked at a golf club should I have looked at a golf club? Probably not."

Yeah, probably not, even if it cures his slice.

And more credit: This week, commissioners asked their attorney to come up with a policy on limiting their personal computer use. (County employees have been fired for using computers that way at work, but those rules don't apply to commissioners.)

All well and good. But Mulieri also warned her colleagues at the meeting, "Big Brother is watching you, so don't go on the Internet." Good advice not to use the Net for personal stuff at work, but Big Brother? Excuse me, but the people paid for that laptop you've got there. They have a right to know exactly what you're doing with it.

Simon also said at the meeting that he was afraid to look down to sign papers for fear the Times might report he wasn't paying attention. Give me a break. If those are work-related papers and not documents to, say, refinance your house, I think you're okay.

Commissioners also complained that a policy on their computer use could be hard to follow. Really? Well, here's a suggestion for one that's pretty simple. Don't use the county computer for anything you'd be embarrassed to see in print later. Don't look up anything you can't justify while looking a voter in the eye.

And while you're up there on that dais, pay attention to the people who put you there. Come election time, I bet voters won't be too busy multitasking to remember.

Sue Carlton can be reached at carlton@sptimes.com

[Last modified March 3, 2006, 02:15:34]