It was a telling dialogue last week during the Harmony borough council meeting, between council member Don Sims and business owner Josh Meeder, regarding proposed bylaws changes for the Butler County Tourism and Convention Bureau.

Meeder spoke in favor of the changes, which would give the bed-tax-supported agency more authority — and less public oversight — in recruiting membership and spending funds.

Sims countered that the changes concentrate too much power in the hands of bureau President Jack Cohen, making Cohen essentially the agency’s dictator.

Among the specific changes:

• The bureau’s general membership would meet three times a year; if currently meets four times.

• A membership committee would be eliminated. The board of directors would assume oversight of new member recruitment.

• Only one appointed officer would be required to authorize any expenditure of $500 or more. Such spending currently requires two signatures.

• Rules for handling petty cash and donating to other nonprofits would be relaxed.

In all, 300 members of the Tourism Bureau have been asked to vote on the bylaws overhaul during a 30-day period. Membership includes individuals, municipal governments and tourism-related businesses that support the bureau and receive services from it.

The Harmony council voted unanimously against the proposal — and for good reason.

The tourism bureau is a government-funded agency, is funded by a county hotel tax, membership dues, state tourism matching grants and other cooperative programs. It is governed by a board of directors with various activities recommended and implemented by standing committees.

Because the bureau spends tax dollars, it must be regulated by constraints in how it spends. It must also strive to maintain operational transparency.

The proposed changes don’t do either; in fact, they do the opposite. They relax the constraints and they reduce the oversight.

Taken together with the recent disclosure of the tourism bureau’s venture into the hotel trade with its plan to buy and renovate the Kaufman House in Zelienople, the proposed changes to the bylaws suggest a sharp turn in the bureau’s direction.

The turn threatens to take the Tourism Bureau away from its primary mission — the mission to which the Butler County Commissioners assigned it in 2002.

The day after the meeting, Cohen said he had no say in the proposed changes, and that his role is administrative — he carries out the will of the board of directors.

If that’s true — if Cohen had no hand in the revisions, then he won’t be disappointed if they fail. On the other hand, if the proposed elimination of some checks and balances were pushed by Cohen, then the proposal itself must be regarded as a reason he, or a future president of the agency, should not have it.