Transparency isn’t always comfortable

A hotly-contested tax in Mission, MO has some doubting the merits of transparency. After disclosing a new fee that would go towards fixing roads in the town, bloggers and other media officials are unhappy with what has been dubbed “the driveway tax.”

The fee was established after discussions and hearings, and the municipality announced it in a newsletter.* These transparency efforts lead to the negative reaction from bloggers and media outlets.

Often, the knee-jerk reaction in these situations are a mix of self-preservation, defensive posturing by city officials, and an unwillingness to put information in the public spotlight again.

Transparency isn’t always easy, and just like any job people will not always be happy with the end results. But just like a paper that is proof read, exposing government information to the public will lead to an open, honest, and better performing government entity.

I believe this for all levels of government, from cities like Mission to the Federal level.

* I have not been able to find a website for the city. While it’s obvious city officials are trying, a website would be a positive step for easier access to government information.

Open data sites and how to make them worth it

David Eaves is an open government adviser, and at his blog he’s talking about the what it takes to build an effective government transparency portal. He breaks it down into three steps.

First, he recommends governments create their portal so that data is automatically updated.

If you are going to launch an open data portal, make sure you’ve figured out how to automate the data updates first. It is harder to do, but essential. In the early days open data sites often live and die based on the engagement of a relatively small community or early adopters – the people who will initially make the data come alive and build broader awareness. Frustrate the community and the initiative will have a harder time gaining traction.

Not doing this has several consequences. Manual updates of data rely on public servants doing the data updates sustainable. Because these updates are work intensive, they are unsustainable. Also, the herculian nature of manual updates for some of these data sets basically ensure that they will be innacurate, which garners ill-will from tech advocates and developers, who spread the word to citizens.

Second, Eaves also suggests keeping the barriers to entry low:

What you shouldn’t do is require users to register. If the data is open, you don’t care who is using it and indeed, as a government, you don’t want the hassle of tracking them. Also, don’t call your data open if members must belong to a educational institution or a non-profit. That is by definition not data that is open (I’m looking at you StatsCan, its not liberated data if only a handful of people can look at it, sadly, you’re not the only site to do this). Worst is one website that, in order to access the online catalogue you have to fax in a form outlining who you are.

This is the antithesis of how an open data portal should work.

Lastly, he strongly recommends governments “think like librarians”; that is, they’re data should be organized and easy to access. Governments shouldn’t demand that users figure our where they data they need is, it should be easy to find and consume. Eaves notes one Canadian transparency site that offers a phone operator service where someone can help walk you through the site and find data. But this is one step too many: data should be easy to find and use, period. No help desk needed.

Eaves ends his essay by noting that good open data portals are collaborative: they encourage feedback from users and take it into account. I would say collaboration is one of the chief reasons to have an open data site in the first place. One thing’s for sure, though, and that is that if governments don’t have a sustainable open data site, they miss out of all the benefits of it, including collaboration.

Albuquerque website goes the distance

Sunshine Review has ranked over 5,000 government website since we launched, and only 52 of those websites have merited an “A” transparency grade.

Which is why I can’t express how stoked I was to see Albuquerque, New Mexico’s new website. This city website is out-performing most government websites in the US for proactive disclosure of information. In fact, very few local governments have made the effort to be that transparent, and in such detail.

You want it, this site has it. Credit card receipts, lobbying expenditures, campaign contributions, audits, contracts, employee salaries—everything. This website literally achieved not just every mark on Sunshine Review’s transparency checklist, but also nailed all our suggested data as well. Data is even downloadable in different formats.

I highly recommend poking around the revamped site, and demanding the same performance from your local governments.

Transparent union negotiations

They happen:

The recent negotiations were stipulated as a part of the last contract. And for the first time in recent memory, talks took place in a public meeting of the city council. In years past, contracts have been negotiated behind closed doors, by a small council committee.

The unions in question are the Jeffersonville, Indiana Firefighters Local 558 and the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 100. The entire negotiation process seemed a potentially volatile situation that somehow remained civil and efficient.

Small town Texas has big web presence

Have you ever heard of Manor, TX? Probably not. It’s a small town in Texas with 6,500 residents, and it happens to be one of the technological hotspots for Gov 2.0.

Manor is currently piloting over a dozen technological programs, like See.Click.Fix., QR codes (those bars that cell phone can scan), and a virtual suggestion box that’s gotten up to 2,000 comments from the small town.

And while I’m happy to see a small town work hard for civic engagement, I wish I’d seen a stronger transparency score. Manor scored a “D” transparency score on SR, and failed to post things like contracts or even e-mails for their city council. I hope to see Manor continue to be cutting edge, but I also would like to see them cover the basics first.

Update: Manor updated it’s website within a day of this post and doubled it’s transparency and improved to a “B” transparency grade.

Governors’ owe constituents their time sheets

I have had jobs where I have to report my hours, and am familiar with time sheets. They are certainly annoying, but I never lamented it too much. I always felt that my employers had a right to hold me accountable.

Turns out there’s a version of time sheets for governors. And in Texas, there’s also an equivalent to the employee who doesn’t fill out his time card, or who doesn’t work. It’s hard to tell.

Governor Rick Perry’s schedule for the first six months of 2010 showed an average of seven hours of state work per week, according to the Texas Tribune. And 38 of his weekdays had “no state scheduled events.” Perry responded that he simply doesn’t write down much of his work for the state.

This is certainly not the norm. The Tribune obtained detailed schedules kept by his fellow big-state governors:

Perry’s counterparts in California, New York and Florida do write down what they do. New York Gov. David Paterson’s schedule goes so far as to include drive times between events. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger lists “cigar time” on his schedule. And they make their schedules readily available to the public. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist puts his schedule online every day.

Perry in all likelihood just isn’t reporting his schedule. Perry’s schedule makes no mention of a series of conference calls that Gulf Coast governors held regarding the BP oil spill. On one of the days on which Florida Governor Charlie Crist’s log shows a phone call with Perry, Perry’s schedule reads “no state scheduled events.”

“Many times the governor was on [the call], [and] many times his staff was on,” says Katherine Cesinger, a Perry spokeswoman. “If the governor didn’t call in, it’s not necessarily on his schedule.”

The article goes on to compare the approach of all of the governors examined to reporting their work, and to how this affects their approach to their jobs. It also focuses on other aspects of Perry’s transparency record, and notes that Perry’s office deletes official e-mails every seven days.

The practical consequences of transparency are prevention and weeding out of fraud and corruption. But on another, more personal level, open government and proactive disclosure instill trust in our elected officials. Perry may not be up to anything fishy, but it wouldn’t hurt him to share more information with Texans about his professional activities.

NJ FOIA lawsuit turns into a criminal investigation

A local watchdog group got more than they expected when they sued Bloomfield township for public records. It was revealed that a lawyer was retained by Councilwoman Patricia Spychala for violations of the Open Meetings Act and more. According the paper:

“Kologi states he was retained to represent Spychala in regards to a lawsuit by several police officers suing for the alleged wrongful selection of Mark Leonard over Christopher Goul for police chief. The correspondence also states he represents Spychala for an alleged violation of the Open Public Meetings Act, after she and others were accused of meeting privately with Leonard prior to his selection.”

Now a criminal investigation has been launched to look into the situation. This is an excellent example of why pursuing public records, even when you have to file a lawsuit, is so important.

I hope you’ll join us for FOIAchat tomorrow, 2-3 EST, where we’ll have Kenneth Bunting from the National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC) speaking with us about FOIA litigation and the Knight FOI Fund, which helps groups fund them.

Proactive disclosure of financial forms could save all sorts of trouble in Massachusetts

The Boston Globe reported that it takes months to process requests to see financial disclosure forms in Massachusetts. The State Ethics Commission is in charge of these forms.

The forms, called Statements of Financial Interest, detail financial holdings of state and local officials. A state law requires the filings be available during office hours upon request. Still, in practice, the forms are difficult to procure.

Massachusetts requires the state notify an official when a request to see his or her form is submitted, which contributes to the lag. 29 other states post the forms online, and most of the rest make the forms publicly available in their offices.

Thanks to The Globe’s story, however, legislators have to resolve the problem. It’s a good thing, too. Information that’s inaccessible in practice may as well be inaccessible by the law. The result is the same, which is citizens left in the dark.

Proactive disclosure is the answer. Senator Brian A. Joyce (D) and Representative Anne M. Gobi (D), members of the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight, both suggest the state post the disclosure forms online from the get-go. They suggest an amendment to the 1978 Massachusetts law that would allow the Ethics Commission of the state to post the forms online.

Some officials are even taking the responsibility to be open into their own hands. Steve Grossman, a Democratic candidate for state treasurer, posted the forms he has filed on his website.

A spokesman for the Ethics Commission previously said that the commission was trying to find ways to process the forms more efficiently.

What’s more efficient than proactive disclosure?

Thanks to Todd Wallack for the excellent story.

NFOIC joins us for FOIAchat

I’m excited to announce that Kenneth Bunting from the National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC) will be joining us for FOIAchat this week! The organization is a alliance of freedom of information organizations, academic and First Amendment centers, journalistic societies and attorneys. Bunting is going to be speaking with us about the Knight FOI Fund, which helps to cover the costs of FOIA litigation.

This is a great opportunity for any Q&A you have about FOI litigation, so make sure you come prepped with questions. If you won’t be able to make it, leave a question in the comments and we’ll make sure to ask on your behalf and record the answers in our FOIAchat archive.

Just a reminder:

• Date: Friday, August 20th
• Time: 2-3 pm EST
• Where: Twitter, using the hashtag #FOIAchat

Ordinance to limit open meetings act fails

Last Friday on #FOIAchat, our live Twitter chat on Freedom of Information Act issues, the Dover, New Jersey open meetings ordinance came up. The ordinance required citizens to turn over videos of open meetings. Why? As the Mayor stated, “With today’s technology, people can edit, tape, doctor or alter the real intent of what’s discussed.”

(It is true that video tapes can be altered. So can basically anything else that’s recordable.)

But last Tuesday the Board of Alderman rejected the ordinance.

Alderman Pat Donofrio, the only member to oppose the ordinance at its introduction two weeks ago, was pleased with the proposed law’s defeat. Not only did he see the law as unnecessary, by more seriously, Donofrio also saw it as a “reactive response” by Mayor James Dodd to restrict recording the meetings by certain residents.

Edward Correa, founder of the group Dover Democrats For Change, said it was nonsensical to expect citizens to hand over recordings. It was also harmful to open government. “There were too many regulations that would have discouraged people from taping the meetings.”

Luckily, this ordinance was defeated. But governments and officials keep trying to defeat open records and open meetings laws. In Texaschallenge the constitutionality of the Texas Open Meetings Act. Let’s stay informed and make sure attempts like these to limit our information don’t make it very far, and that we have officials like Alderman Donofrio looking out for transparency government.

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