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.

South Carolina officials don’t know open meetings law exists

Three current and one former commissioner of a South Carolina fire district face charges they violated the South Carolina Open Meetings Law by barring a reporter from a meeting. A judge signed their summonses this week. Hometown News reporter Jay King says officials threw him out of a June meeting and ignored his explanation of the Freedom of Information Act. The Holly Springs Fire and Rescue commissioners are set to appear in court in late September.

This is the first time a criminal case has has been brought against South Carolina public officials over the 1974 statute.

Chairman Ryan Phillips acknowledges the board didn’t follow the law but says it didn’t know the law at the time. This actually seems sincere. Other instances of citizens and reporters being kicked out of public meetings make it clear that the guilty parties either didn’t care about the law, or didn’t consider whether the law exists. They simply knew they could use their authority to box-out inconvenient watchdogs and ensure secrecy. However, the officials seem to sincerely not have known.

This may even be a worse offense. But who is to blame?

Perhaps the attorney general. Generally speaking, it is often the attorney general that is the Freedom of Information officer in states.

South Carolina, however, doesn’t need a scapegoat. It needs a solution. Local officials in every state need to be educated as to what their Freedom of Information Acts require of them, both the public records and public meetings portions. This is an easily justifiable use of taxpayer money.

Often we focus on citizen education in order to hold government accountable. But the government has to do its part, too.

Local zoning board violates Pennsylvania Sunshine Act

Lower Merion Township chairman broke the law yesterday when he ordered Channel 6 News cameras to not film a public meeting. In the middle of a meeting disputing changes to St. Joseph’s baseball field, the chairman of the zoning board told reporters they could stay, but they had to turn their cameras off.

This was a direct violation of the Pennsylvania Sunshine Act.

“It’s a public hearing but we don’t do that. We don’t want people to do that. It causes a zoo. We don’t want it to become a zoo,” said Zoning Board Chairman Kenneth Aaron, Esq.

When the journalists refused to turn off their cameras, the chairman called the police. The police sided with the chairman and ordered the cameras to be turned off. The journalists relented, turning off their cameras, but at the cost of government transparency.

Citizens work wonders with information on their side… when they aren’t being kicked out of public meetings

What can citizens do once they have government information?

In Bell, California, three senior city officials were making lavish salaries. The Chief Administrative Officer, Robert Rizzo, was making $787,637 for running the city of less than 40,000. When citizens found out, they were rightfully outraged and their anger translated into the resignation of those three officials. Now activist groups are calling for the resignation of 4 out of the 5 city council members. These positions are part time, but the council members are making more close to $100,000.

“It’s showing that the residents are ready and willing to fix this problem and they’re going to move forward until they get justice and get a government that works for them,” said Christina Garcia, the head of one of the activist groups involved in organizing upset citiznes. The group is calling for open records and an exhaustive audit of the city’s finances. Coincidentally, the city gets an “F” on transparency using our 10 point transparency checklist.

Citizens armed with information are fully-vested with the power they need in order to keep their government accountable. But what about those instances where information is kept from citizens?

Mike Gatto, California State Assemblyman, avoids cameras and answering question. But that’s putting it lightly. One man representing the assemblyman who can only kindly be described as “overly aggressive” in his tactics kicked a journalist out from a public meeting in a public library. Less than 30 people attended the meeting. And that’s how many would find out what really happened in that meeting,

Police at the scene threatened to arrest the journalist if he didn’t leave. Of course, the journalist was the last person that needed to be threatened by police. Perhaps the police should have threatened the assemblyman and compelled him to acknowledge California’s open meetings law.

Several things I’ve learned through #FOIAchat, our weekly Twitter conference on Freedom of Information issues, come to mind. First, video cameras will bring out the worst in public officials and their staff as far as secrecy goes. But few will object to, or notice, a voice recorder. For many reasons, video is far superior to just voice recording, but it is better than nothing. Second, the fact that Mike Gatto is acting like a diva is a story in itself. If this were a special on VH1, it would be understandable why he wouldn’t want unexpected cameras. But as an elected official, paid by taxpayer money, he has no right to exclude journalists (and thereby exclude his constituents) from public meetings. This is a story on it’s own right, and had he let the journalist in the meeting, the journalist probably wouldn’t have found anything as worthy of reporting as Gatto’s power trip.

Lastly, people are becoming a part of government accountability, and officials should embrace this and learn to work with citizens instead of trying to push us out. We’ve talked about the benefits to governments and citizens alike to letting cameras into open meetings. Officials can benefit by having justifications for their decisions available and they can also see a decrease in Freedom of Information Act requests. The benefits to citizens are obvious.

It won’t work to keep us out, we’re already in. Officials need to get with the times and include us in the conversation, or suffer the wrath of informed citizens.