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June 17, 2010 by
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Over at the WikiFOIA blog, they’re talking about the :
This issue of justifying the recording of open meetings came up during one of our weekly Friday FOIA chats. During this chat, the participants of FOIA Friday also developed a laundry list of reasons most of which help to overcome the justifications of the Chicago area school boards [who have stopped posting meetings].
The blog includes a long list of reasons governments should archive their videos online. The reasons taken together should be enough to help governments overcome anxiety about making their meetings easily accessible.
Be sure to checkout for updates on issues and legislation. Also, join us on Twitter every Friday from 2-3 EST for , our live conference on FOIA issues and the original source of the discussion on open meetings.
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June 16, 2010 by
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Citizen journalism will be getting a new look this summer. Youtube has announced that is will be expanding ““, starting with a news feed that will be balanced between mainstream news outlets and citizen journalism.
Youtube is working with the Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism on implementing the expansion, . The stories will cover anything from global developments to the funny and light hearted.
How many of you are planning your first Youtube report?
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June 15, 2010 by
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Senator of (R-) has sponsored legislation that would create a website allowing taxpayers to see how tax money is spent int the state. The bill was proposed in 2008. The Senate approved the Transparency in Government Act, 29-3, on Thursday and has moved into the New Jersey Assembly.
“A number of states already authorize taxpayers to track their tax dollars online. This affordable, common-sense program will provide information in a user-friendly format that can be accessed from homes, libraries and businesses. It is long past time that we listen to taxpayers who are demanding that Trenton be accountable.”
This came just in time. An editorial in the Courier Post Online complains about the . “It’s not 1995, where people are just starting to get the Internet in their homes. It’s 2010.” Citing the US PIRG’s report on state website transparency (which we include on our ) which graded New Jersey an “F” for their lack of a government transparency website.
Sunshine Review gives the website an “A” for the amount of information disclosed.
The data that would be accessible to the public following the are:
*disbursements by state agencies,
*receipts and deposits by state agencies,
*agency earnings,
*annual state bonded indebtedness,
*bond debt services,
*salaries and wages,
*contractual service purchases,
*capital outlay and improvements,
*aid to local units of government,
*annual state revenue,
*taxes, and
*federal grants.
Four of these items are items on our . As for the rest, those items alone should be enough to greatly decrease the amount of the state received. This will turn out to benefit the state and the people: people won’t have to wait to get the information they are due, and the government won’t have to expend as many resources on providing this information by just providing it upfront.
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June 14, 2010 by
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The city of has launched an to vote on which government programs deserve funding in the upcoming year. Constituents may cast 25 votes supporting the projects they’d prefer to receive funding, and may leave comments on the programs too. The expansion of the Austin Police Department has already garnered , something I doubt would have happened at an , especially given the sass of some of the comments.
Kudos to Austin for being innovative and encouraging citizen feedback with an online forum.
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June 11, 2010 by
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is the combination of innovation by government, transparency of its processes, collaboration among its members, and participation of citizens. Mark Drapeau notes that these steps taken together “constitute a huge transformation of government, at any level.”
That transformation hasn’t happened yet. But it is starting.
The Obama Administration’s open data initiative, , has been criticized for the lack of value of the data sets disclosed. But the innovators on the net have made it so these data sets are actually useful.
The has summarized five of the top innovations they have seen inspired by the data sets. While the apps and websites are just really cool in the fact that they look sleek and they offer ways of interpreting information that weren’t available to us before, there’s a very practical aspect to them. They make data relevant to our lives. Specifically using health data, new apps and websites unveiled at the were able to create an “asthma map” detailing occurences of asthma by geography, for example, and Sonoma County integrated the data to gauge the health status of different communities. The . The training in itself is not what is newsworthy, but rather what it symbolizes: a real government commitment to understand how citizens communicate, and a commitment to attempt to better disburse information.
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June 10, 2010 by
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Recently, I was speaking with Nevada school officials about our .
Our analysis of shows that the state could use some work: districts received a “D” in general. While got a high grade of “B,” it was the exception, and no school district managed to break into an “A.” , which includes the city of , only managed a “C.”
Those school districts combined include almost 90% of all students in Nevada*, so it is of particular importance that school districts live up to their responsibility of information to parents and taxpayers.
No school district in the state fully discloses the district’s background check policy. Because education staff work so closely with children, this may arguably be one of the more items on our 10 point transparency checklist for school districts to disclose, at least as far as parents are concerned. As far as taxpayers are concerned, perhaps the most important item on our list is tax information: how much do school districts get, and do they use a millage system? Nevada taxpayers are left to figure that out on their own, since no school district fully discloses that information, either.
Sunshine Review has also . One county spokesperson in the state commented that the items we request are “” because citizens haven’t asked them to specifically post that information. We think, however, that it shouldn’t get to that point. Proactive disclosure means accepting the fact that your job as a public servant includes providing information that your citizens are due, before they have to ask you for it.
Note: While I was looking into Nevada school districts, I found our article very helpful in understanding the state’s education system.
*Used “” tool from the .
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June 9, 2010 by
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Well, at least the notices for Public Meetings do. Currently, it’s legally required for public notices to be posted . This is a great commonsense idea, unless the only way it’s implemented is a flyer nailed to the door at the town hall. Personally, I think it needs to be online.
Those at the Sangre Chronicle just want it always posted in the same place, saying in a recent :
A more concerted effort from our towns and villages would help. Post meeting notices all over town. Do an e-mail blast. Work ahead to put notices in the paper. In Angel Fire, notices could also run on the marquee in front of the village hall.
It’s kind of like marketing. If you were selling something, you would want to post the information everywhere to get the best results.
Why not do that with meeting notices?
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June 8, 2010 by
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Kentucky’s transparency website, is being recognized by the .
has since greatly improved. Last year, the Center for Study of Responsive Law criticized the state for not publishing the full text of state contracts online, and the state would have been considered one of the .
This year, however, has taken the initiative to change. In April this year, as the only state to receive an “A” rating for transparency in a report published by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, whose findings we include on our .
In addition to its transparency website, Kentucky operates , which publishes information about projects.
Another sign that is Senate Bill 88, which passed and will soon become law. This bill requires more transparency from such as the Kentucky League of Cities and the Kentucky Association of Counties. The Kentucky Association of Counties, at least, is taking their new mandated responsibilities seriously. It aims to become a model for other taxpayer-funded lobbying associations as far as their .
I’ll end this post with a hopeful quote from the Center for Study of Responsive Law that summarizes the significance of Kentucky’s turn-around:
“Kentucky went from a worst performer to one of the best full-transparency states all in one year. This remarkable progress demonstrates the ease and speed with which all states could open their books to their citizens.”
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June 7, 2010 by
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That is essentially what is happening in . Commissioner Tommy Adkisson has refused to hand over e-mails discussing public information from his . This is after the Attorney General ruled that he must release the e-mails the San Antonio Express-News who had first submitted the open-record request back in February.
Adkisson says that he is appealing the ruling because he believe the newspaper is penalizing him for being opposed to toll roads.
“I think you’ve crossed the line between where I have some expectation of privacy and where you believe the public interest is,” Adkisson said. “I just believe that it has been one hugely intrusive episode by the Express-News.”
However, the AG has remained consistant the even from personal e-mail accounts. If Adkisson wins the appeal, it has the potential to create a large loophole for government officials to avoid records requests.
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June 4, 2010 by
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One question that comes up frequently for those who believe in limited and responsible government is when the time is right for the government to intervene in a private matter.
The BP oil spill off the Gulf of Mexico is now being considered the largest offshore spill in U.S. history.
BP is refusing to allow scientists to take accurate measurements of the spill. The blowout is the third serious incident at a BP-operated site in the United States in the last five years, following the Refinery explosion in 2005 and the oil spill in 2006.
BP has:
* restricted media’s access to Working conditions
* restricted media’s access to Access to data on how fast the oil is flowing out
* kicked journalists off oil stained beached
* only provided the media with a 30 sec. clip of the flow
The U.S. Government is refusing to publish BP’s data, saying it belongs to them. And the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is not tracking “spotted” plumes of oil, and does not have a single research vessel at sea.
So with some of this lack of information, some are asking: what can we do? Or rather, because of the scope of the problem, what can government do? Is BP’s lack of transparency inherently a government problem? Should government make it its problem?
Today at #FOIAchat, our live chat on Twitter from 2-3 EST, we’ll be discussing this topic as well as other issues in the news. Join us and contribute to our understanding as to what the proper response to the oil spill should be. Or contribute questions that we haven’t broached.
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