Weekly Update 12

November 15, 2024

Hello everyone,

I am reaching out to you personally to ask for your help in increasing the accessibility and distribution of this newsletter: Please contact your friends and family in Zichron Yaakov and tell them about the council updates you receive. And invite them to join—send me their full name and email address via email or directly to my WhatsApp: 054-5669830.

Please—we must add hundreds more people to this list.

Today’s newsletter, without my planning it, ties into the headlines of the past two days: “Did Netanyahu’s office staff alter or falsify the office minutes from the morning of October 7?” The accuracy of the minutes is now the focus of an ISA investigation. See how important the minutes are and keep reading about what’s happening here at the council.

I’ve written here before that the main tool of the council members (and we’re all volunteers) is the discussions during council meetings—this is the arena where the council chair must secure our support on a range of administrative and budgetary issues and therefore must answer our questions and explain the nature of the requested actions. This is the regular forum where, at least once a month, we meet with the council secretary, the treasurer, the engineer, and the legal advisor—who are part of the discussion and also serve as professional experts required to present information, provide explanations, and answer our questions. In practice, it often happens that they fail to respond to my emails and provide the required information, even though, according to the law and the Local Authorities Ordinance, they are obligated to provide relevant information and documents to council members.

Before every council meeting, our party—including our three council members—meets to review the meeting’s agenda, prepare questions, and formulate decisions. This partyal preparatory meeting helps us greatly to examine the issues at hand, so that the party’s representatives—the council members—arrive at the meeting with a list of essential and important questions as part of the information needed to make a decision. My goal is not just to speak at the meeting but to present substantive issues and obtain information relevant to the vote—information that residents must also be aware of. That is why it is important to me that the questions I raised and the answers be included in the meeting minutes.

The law requires that minutes be written and approved, which must include: the matter to be decided, detailed information regarding it, the decision reached, and how the participants voted. Only the minutes reflect the meeting, not the video recording.

The meeting minutes serve two important purposes. The first is to provide information and transparency to the public. The second is to facilitate oversight by the Ministry of the Interior.

I will begin with the first purpose: Transparency in the council’s activities is a cornerstone of good governance and the proper conduct of a public body. Therefore, it is important that the participants’ remarks be recorded, even if briefly, so that the public has transparent and factual information regarding the main issues discussed and approved in the plenary session, as well as the positions and conduct of elected officials. If there is no summary of the main points, beyond a vague title of the topic under discussion—incomplete or deficient minutes undermine the public’s right to know. There is an obligation to publish all minutes on the council’s website. And this is indeed being done.

The second objective concerns oversight by the Ministry of the Interior—incomplete minutes also undermine the Ministry’s ability to oversee the local authority. The minutes are forwarded to the Ministry’s supervisor of the local authority, who must approve our decisions regarding financial matters and, at times, non-financial matters as well. Therefore, it is important that the Ministry of the Interior read and understand what issues were raised during the meeting and whether they were given a lawful response. Without the minutes, the supervisor risks becoming a rubber stamp that approves everything passed by a majority in the meeting, even if it is unlawful.

Unfortunately, many of the minutes from the current council chair’s previous terms lacked details of the questions or answers raised during the discussion. They did not always delve into the substance of matters or the financial implications of the decisions made. Consequently, the public in Zichron Ya’acov was not exposed to the information discussed at the meeting or the conduct of their elected officials. The public mistakenly thought that “everything was fine” because it was approved by the council, where the council head had a full majority, and the flawed minutes did not highlight the problems.

I believe we must learn from the past so as not to repeat the same mistake, and therefore, with the current council chair, it is important to be even more meticulous about the minutes.

So how are we in the “Lema’an HaMoshava” party working to ensure these two goals are achieved and that the minutes are complete and accurate?

The first approach I take is to request this during the meeting itself—I address the council secretary directly, who is responsible for the minutes, and ask, “Please include my remarks in the minutes.” I immediately make a note of this request so I can follow up later to ensure my remarks were indeed included.

The second option, if something was not included, is to submit requests to amend the minutes. According to the law, the minutes are distributed to all council members so that we can review them and verify whether they accurately reflect what was said during the meeting; if not, we have the right to request a correction to the minutes. At the next council meeting, the request for correction is brought up and put to a vote. If there is a majority in favor, the correction will be included in the minutes.

Attached are the minutes of the last council meeting held on November 5, 2024, during which I requested two corrections to the minutes of the previous meeting. 

The first correction: At the previous meeting, we were asked to approve funding to hire an architect to design a multipurpose center for Zichron Yaakov’s senior citizens. During the previous term, a decision was made and a plan was prepared to construct the building on a central public lot near the public library and the local shopping center. The current council head requested a change of location, and the building is now slated to be built adjacent to the Zichron Yaakov Country Club and Community Center, where the dirt parking lot is currently located. Here is what I said that was not included in the minutes:

“There is a serious traffic problem at the proposed location. The area is already congested due to the HaHita School, the community center, the country club, and more. And the problem on Aharon Road is only going to get worse. Access via the Tazmoret neighborhood is not possible because the zoning plan stipulates that there will be no passageway.

Has the brownfield site in Neve Sharett been considered—the one that was originally designated for the Keshet School?”

It is easy to see how important my remarks are to the public, who were aware of the transportation issues and knew that the council head, with the support of Tzachi Baruch—who previously held the senior citizens’ portfolio—preferred this problematic location over the brownfield/public land in the Neve Sharett neighborhood. Fortunately, the amendment was approved, and this important information was included in the minutes.

By the way, the council head reiterated his promise that the council’s transportation advisor would attend the next meeting and answer questions on this topic. You are invited to attend the meeting—it is always open to the public.

Second amendment. At the previous meeting, we were asked to approve additional funds for sealing public buildings in preparation for winter. During the discussion, it came up that the work had already been performed by a previous contractor who refuses to fix the defects in his work, so a new contractor must be paid. As a lawyer, I wanted to understand whether it is possible to compel the previous contractor to fix his substandard work, which would save the council from having to pay a new contractor now. Therefore, as a lawyer, I asked: What type of contract was signed with the previous contractor? Without getting into a legal explanation—the question and the response provided by the legal advisor are relevant. Therefore, I submitted a request to amend the minutes.

To my great surprise, the legal advisor’s response to my request (which was read aloud since he was not present at the meeting) was: “According to the law, the meeting minutes are not a verbatim transcript, and not every statement made during the meeting needs to be included. A council member may request that her own statements be included or corrected, but she cannot add statements made by other speakers during the hearing. If she wishes to have the question she asked deleted, she is entitled to request that. I do not authorize the addition of anything in my name.”

I was stunned by this response! Formally speaking—he is correct. But what did I actually ask for? That the legal answer the Legal Advisor gave to the question I posed appear in the minutes. Why shouldn’t the public know this legal answer? What about the public’s right to information—the Legal Advisor plays an important role as a gatekeeper.

Attached are the minutes of the last meeting where the two requests for correction I submitted regarding the previous minutes were discussed. On page 2 is the request to correct minutes 14/24—Limor Zar Gutman. Incidentally, the Legal Advisor’s response—which I quoted for you above—was not included in the minutes of the last meeting. Only the Council Chair’s response was included. This is another significant omission, but I cannot request an amendment to the new minutes because those are not my words. It’s truly a Catch-22.

In closing, I invite you to take part in a community activity that combines commemorating the memory of a local IDF officer with caring for animals and a love of nature—values in which the late Maj. Roei Chapell believed:

Dr. Avigayil Dolev, a member of our party, initiated this memorial project together with Roei’s mother, Orit Tzuk, and Amir Vitraub, a family friend, in collaboration with the council. All details are in the announcement below.

Yours,

Limor Zar-Guttman

The “Lema’an HaMoshava” Party