Sunshine Review

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IL boosts spending transparency

Today the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget (GOMB) released the statement of revenues and expenditures, outlining financial activities from 2010 and the first quart of 2011. Why is this so significant? Normally we would not be seeing these figures unti 2012. GOMB has adopted a new schedule of reporting that will make financial statements... [Read more of this review]

Sunlight Foundation: “How accurate are lobbying figures?”

The Sunlight Foundation, our ally in transparency, is currently featuring a blog of mine on the disparity between lobbying data and actual lobbying: A closer look at the requirements makes it clear how easy these requirements are to shirk, and how much they leave out. Consider the fact that they don’t include a lot of what “lobbying” is: influencing... [Read more of this review]

Cuyahoga County Council fails to keep transparency campaign promise

Six Cuyahoga County Council members-elect are already failing to uphold their campaign pledges for greater government transparency. These six members-elect met in a closed meeting this past Friday to decide on who will serve as the new council president. This is the same behavior they promised to leave in the past prior to elections according to their... [Read more of this review]

Open government bills in Wyoming

There are three legislative proposals set to make government more transparent in Wyoming. One bill would require a response to Freedom of Information Act requests in three days. Currently, the Wyoming Sunshine Law does not specify response times. Another proposed change would require courts to expedite cases involving public records requests, while... [Read more of this review]

Is Detroit covering for Kilpatrick?

Ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s computer has gone missing. Kilpatrick hasn’t seen it, and city officials say they haven’t seen what happened to it either. “His computer’s got legs,” said attorney Norman Yatooma, who is representing the family of exotic dancer Tamara Greene, who was killed in a drive-by shooting... [Read more of this review]

Ohio Governor-elect reluctantly opens up hiring process

Ohio Governor-elect John Kasich (R) is not shy about explaining why he’ll post resumes of public job candidates: because he’s being forced to. Kasich solicited resumes for 4,700 state government jobs, including some high-ranking positions. He feels that the fact that the hiring process will be public will prevent him from filling all... [Read more of this review]

Are women better at achieving Gov 2.0?

You bet. And I say that because I’m a woman. But in all seriousness, others—of the male gender—are willing to back me up. Mainly, Andrea Di Maio, who is VP of Gartner Research. Di Maio hasn’t conducted any official surveys, but has been spoken to several hundred people around the world for the past three years on web 2.0 and government... [Read more of this review]

Wikileaks scandal: what does “radical transparency” mean?

Wikileaks is, like Sunshine Review, a wiki, which means that it is (generally) open to all to contribute to to make edits. It is an ideal platform for collecting information. Wikileaks expressly exists “to publish original source material,” which has gotten it much negative attention. The site had come under fire earlier this year, and... [Read more of this review]

Chicago mayoral hopeful calls for more transparency

With long-time Chicago Mayor Richard Daley announcing his last term, aspiring mayors are already trying to set themselves apart from other potential candidates. Gery Chico has decided to focus on transparency. Chico unveiled a transparency initiative today that aims to make government information and data more available and accessible to Chicagoans.... [Read more of this review]

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