Reacting to opposition from Mayor James Mueller, the South Bend Common Council Monday night tabled a bill to ban city staff from signing secretive agreements regarding projects. We caught up with the mayor Tuesday to get his take.
Mueller in September issued an executive order barring administration employees from entering into non-disclosure agreements specifically regarding data centers. But he says this bill by council members Oliver Davis and Sherry Bolden-Simpson is too broad because it would cover any information that city staff are required by state and federal law to routinely keep confidential.
“It’s bad legislation," Mueller said. "It was bad legislation when it was introduced, it hasn’t improved since then and we are most concerned by the legal representation for the council doubling down on bad policy and policy that is just unworkable.”
That was a reference to council attorney Bob Palmer.
Before Monday’s council meeting, Mueller’s chief of staff, Troy Warner, sent council members a memo outlining Mueller’s many problems with the bill.
Warner wrote that the bill’s wording “touches every single transaction made by the city and illegally forces the disclosure of personal data.”
Palmer did not reply to WVPE’s interview request. Davis says he and Bolden-Simpson plan to meet with him soon to discuss how to amend the bill.
