The Marietta City Council just made matters worse by approving a "disclaimer" policy for statements posted on the city's taxpayer-funded Web site by council members or the mayor.

The disclaimer will say that such statements are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the entire council. Wow.

This is the toothless and irrelevant outcome of the effort by some council members to muzzle Mayor Bill Dunaway who uses the taxpayer-supported Web site to blast critics, notably Larry Wills who has taken issue with various city actions in MDJ columns.

A proposed policy written by Councilman Philip Goldstein would have required all messages on the Web site be factual and would have barred character attacks, such as the Dunaway blast at Wills in late August - still resting comfortably on the Web site.

Dunaway labeled the draft policy "about as vague as you can possibly get." He was right about that. It was meaningless. By the way, who would check the facts? Maybe a new Fact-Check Committee?

Aside from protecting his personal freedom to vent at taxpayers expense, Dunaway talked about how vital it is to protect and defend City Manager Bill Bruton and other city officials from public criticism, as the MDJ reported.

Never mind protecting the right of the public to criticize public officials. It's all about protecting and defending city officials.

This whole thing is upside down.

If the city is going to have a Web site featuring statements, personal attacks, outrageous comments and other stuff from the mayor and council members, then the city must make this a two-way street allowing citizens to post their comments to be read by visitors to the site.

But that is not the solution to this unnecessary problem.

The solution is what Councilman Jim King suggested. He raised a "fundamental question of whether it's appropriate on a government funded site" to post the sort of stuff the policy is supposed to address. That is the fundamental issue and should have been the starting point in the council's consideration.

King said he would look into setting up a private Web site for council members - paid for by them, not the taxpayers - to answer the public criticism so dreaded by the mayor.

That's the way to go. And again, the site should include blogging so that citizens can have their say when council members post comments.

The city site should be used for actually imparting information to the public - such as the recent citizens committee report on the $33 million refinancing bond issue for the city's hotel-conference center and the opinions of the independent financial and legal counsel concerning that matter.

It's not enough to post self-serving news releases on the Web site when, as lawyers say, the highest and best evidence is the original document. Let the people read the documents instead of having to rely on the city's spin doctors.

Let the sunshine in. No disclaimers needed.

dmckee9613@aol.com