Councilman Orlando holding Covance accountable

Chandler, Arizona's City Councilman Matt Orlando and others are holding Covance's feet to the fire on maintaining open, honest dialogue in their meetings and on their advisory panel. From Chandler Connection (no permalink, sorry):

Orlando scolds Covance for intimidation tactics
By Marshall Terrill

Councilman Matt Orlando took Covance officials to task [for] asking residents who attended a pair of community meetings to sign good-conduct waivers and for trying to stack the deck on the formation of a citizens advisory panel. Orlando scolded officials of the biosciences company at the Dec. 14 council meeting after he heard residents were required to sign a good conduct agreement, which asked them not to hand out fliers or behave in a disruptive manner.

“It’s the first time in my 12 years on the council that I’ve ever heard of someone having to sign a good conduct agreement and frankly, I don’t want to go down this road,” Orlando said. “This stifles communication. We want open and honest dialogue and the last thing we want to do is try and intimidate people.”

... Orlando added that he was dismayed to hear reports from residents that Covance officials do not want animal rights activist on its community advisory panel. Orlando said if the company wants to be taken seriously, a community advisory panel must be comprised of individuals with a diverse range of opinions.

“I don’t fully agree with the fact activists shouldn’t be on the panel,” Orlando said. “Quite frankly, if you put them on your panel you won’t be criticized because you already have been criticized.”

Resident Kathy Keirsted said that she was invited to join the panel by Lance Decker, a consultant with Peoria-based Gunn Communications, Inc., who has been tapped by Covance to help form the panel. She said, however, a day after she attended an anti-Covance meeting, Decker’s attitude had changed.

“He said that he could not get people to return his calls because of the holiday season and the panel was sort of up in the air,” Keirsted said Monday. “I was basically lied to, and it’s just another lie within another lie.”

Keirsted said she would serve on the panel if asked again.

“I am not against animal testing but I am all for keeping the rules,” she said. “This is supposed to be a neutral panel, but it doesn’t certainly appear that way.”

[Covance Spokesperson Camilla] Strongin said the panel is still a few weeks away from being formed. She said the Chandler City Council and the Chandler Chamber of Commerce are screening applications for a 10- to 18-member panel, which would require a minimum of three years of service.

“We are looking at a very diverse group of people ranging from chemists, business people, construction and education who offer a lot of different opinions,” Strongin said, adding that including animal rights activists would be counter productive to their sessions. State Sen. Jay Tibshraeny and Chandler native, said the panel needs to be inclusive.

“The committee needs to have credibility. In order to achieve that, Covance needs to select membership that represents a wide cross-section of our community,” Tibshraeny said Monday. “Inclusiveness is the key.”