Do citizens have the right to speak at public meetings?

Open meeting laws exist in every state to ensure that citizens have access to public officials’ decision-making gatherings. But do these citizens also have a right to actively participate during these meetings?

That question would be up before the Florida Supreme Court… if the Court would agree to hear it. But it wont.

From the Miami-Herald:

“The 1st District Court of Appeals in March rejected claims by two citizens, one now deceased, that Pensacola’s Community Maritime Park Associates had violated Florida’s open meetings law by refusing to let them speak.[...] The Supreme Court on Oct. 13 also declined to take up a similar appeal from a 1st District ruling in a case involving the Alachua City Commission.”

What do you think? My first impression is that citizen participation is the spirit behind open meeting laws, and that local governments should welcome citizens that want to be engaged. But should the law demand that governments mandate that public participation be allowed?

FL policy center applauds state for spending transparency, recommends even more openness

The James Madison Institute has come out with a new policy brief titled Transparency in Government Spending: Next Steps for Florida. The policy brief notes Florida has a history of being at the forefront of the transparency movement, and that it should seize on the unique opportunity it has to maintain that reputation.

Past Florida transparency initiatives include posting a state “E-budget” in the late 1990′s, and providing and online, searchable database of government expenditures.

The brief also details the story of three transparency bills in Florida that failed to become law. One of those bills comes straight from Utopia: it would have required each local government entity and authority prepare a line-item report on revenue, revenue sources, and expenditures. While the bills didn’t pass, they did bring transparency to the forefront, thus setting the stage for the signing of SB 1796, the Florida Transparency Act of 2009 in late May of that year. The law mandates the Governor’s office create a website and require each branch of government and government agency to disclose data, including disbursement data and budget amendments.

The briefing notes that one of the strong parts of this law is that its execution be overseen by the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee. Because the Committee has broad oversight of the implementation of the law, the James Madison Institute recommends it use that discretion to promote greater transparency through measures such as the following:
-The Committee should use its broad oversight role to recommend the incorporation of expenditures beyond those in the General Appropriations Act.
-Contextual information should be provided along with the data. The Committee can demand this.
-The project should keep citizens in mind and, as such, provide data in usable formats, such as XML.

The policy brief ends optimistically, stating that the first step was made 2009 towards Florida becoming a leader in state government transparency, and that 2010 can help ensure that process is complete.

For Sunshine Review Florida transparency grades and resources, check out the following links:
*Evaluation of Florida state website
*Evaluation of Florida school district websites
*Evaluation of Florida county websites
*Florida Sunshine Law
*Florida state budget
*Florida state government salary

Get a free iPod from your local government!

Fill out a survey, get a free iPod: this is a much better deal than you think. Most offers only offer the chance of potentially winning an iPod, but this one guarantees it. So why are people so offended about this failsafe offer?

Well, it comes from a Florida school district.

Polk County School district was offering silver iPods Nanos worth $150 each to parents of children with disabilities who complete a 10-minute online survey. This was to come from the $350,000 of federal money from the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) the school has set aside to be used specifically for programs for developmentally disabled students.

The Assistant Superintendent of Learning Support, Nancy Woolcock, had defended the now dead iPod giveaway program as a fair trade, giving parents an expensive gift in return for needed education data. But that argument convinced very few.

In this case, it was other government officials that scrutinized and ultimately defeated the idea. Rep. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, expressed concern about the iPod purchase plan and asked school district officials to review it.

Representative Adam Putnam and Senator Kelli Stargel both showed concerned and urged the school board to review the idea. “During these difficult economic times, we must be certain that every dime is being spent efficiently and that this expenditure will actually be used by students or parents and teachers in helping to educate their students,” said Stargel, showing strong concern for correct disbursement of government money. Following suit, the Florida Department of Education on Wednesday instructed school district officials to cease the iPod exchange. According to the FDOE, the funds used in the program should have flowed directly to students, not indirectly through parents.

This is a great example of how powerful public scrutiny of information can be. Once the information of the money being spent on iPods was out, public officials had to respond to it. And once it wqas clear that it was a poor use of taxpayer money, the school district needed to ameliorate the situation. Sunshine only helps taxpayers and the legitimacy of governments in the end.

SR in Orlando Sentinel: “Schools rated on record response”

For Sunshine Review’s Back-to-School initiative, we sent information requests to Florida school districts, asking for lobbying information. You can now find our prescription for more open government on the Orlando Sentinel: School districts should enact policies to ensure all new records are stored electronically and are searchable. These policies would open formerly obscure school business documents, such as contracts with vendors and check registers, to public scrutiny. In this way, our government would partner with its citizens, rather than act as an obstacle. For the whole story, click here.

Taxpayer-Funded Lobbying: Start With Florida

We’ve been busy at Sunshine Review. During the summer months, we sent Freedom of Information requests to 27 Florida school districts with registered lobbyists.

Many government entities have lobbyists on staff, and many more contract-out their lobbying needs. Taxpayer-funded lobbying by state and local governments, public universities, transportation authorities, and public water utilities was $138.1 million at the federal level in 2007. This number does not include lobbying at the state and local levels, legislative receptions and gifts, or membership in taxpayer-funded lobbying associations, such as the National Association of Counties.

Data on those activities is hard to find, so we figured we would get the ball rolling by starting with Florida school districts. The most recent results are up, although we’re waiting to hear back from some stragglers, and you can also read a summary of responses by district to the FOIA requests.

To learn more about taxpayer-funded lobbying and our FOIA Back-to-School Project, click here.

Updates from the states

A couple of few interesting updates…

* Our friends at Americans for Tax Reform posted a strong admonishment to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and state Senate President Bob Burns on the ATR blog this morning. Burns recently discharged Senator Thayer Verschoor (R-Gilbert) and Senate Majority Whip Pamela Gorman (R-Anthem) from their leadership positions after the senators voted against the Governor’s ill-advised legislation to increase AZ’s sales tax. Americans for Tax Reform set up an action page citizens can visit to speak out against the tax hike.

* Bob Weeks over at Voice for Liberty in Wichita points out that Sedgwick County, Kansas has placed its check register online. Inquiring minds can sort data by function, category, fund, or vendor.

**MORE UPDATES!!!**

* The Ocean State Policy Research Institute is tracking RI stimulus spending through their newest website, RIStimulus.org.

* Duval County celebrated its “A-” rating from SunshineReview.org, which was the highest grade given in the state of Florida, and the only county that had complete information about lobbyists on its Web site. Only one Florida county, Suwannee County, should be embarrassed by not having a web presence.

I See Dead People …. In the Voting Booth

This is amazing.

I ran across this editorial from The Florida Times-Union while surfing the net today. Thank goodness there is at least one old media outlet crying out for election integrity and urging elected officials to ensure free and fair elections … or at least not allowing corpses to vote.

Here is the editorial from their website.

The Florida Times-Union

June 10, 2008

Elections: Keep them honest

By
The Times-Union

Voter fraud, like the Energizer bunny, just keeps going and going and going and …

A recent study found 9,000 dead people were registered to vote in Connecticut, Fox News reports.

Ok. I know government is inefficient but lets get them to hire the credit card companies that call me when I miss a payment. At least they know where I am and if I am alive!

Innocent mistakes?

In some cases, but not in all. One person had voted 17 times since his death.

17 times!!!! This is either election fraud or very stupid election judges at the polling
location.

There is pretty strong evidence that voter fraud has altered the course of history.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley may have stolen the 1960 presidential election by arranging for votes in the names of dead people.

Something definitely was up in Texas. The Washington Post recalls:

“In Fannin County, which had 4,895 registered voters, 6,138 votes were cast, three-quarters of them for [John] Kennedy.

“In one precinct of Angelina County, 86 people voted and the final tally was 147 for Kennedy, 24 for [Richard] Nixon.”

At the time, a reporter investigated voter fraud in Chicago. The Post quotes him as having said:

“I remember a house. It was completely gutted. There was nobody there. But there were 56 votes for Kennedy in that house.”

This is not like voting for the All Star Team in Major League Baseball. It is one man .. one vote not one man… twenty votes!

Who knows what would have happened if Nixon had been elected president in 1960 instead of 1968?

Also, Lyndon Johnson was nominated to the U.S. Senate in 1948 by an 87-vote margin.

That earned him the nickname, “Landslide Lyndon.”

The election, in which some late votes were “found,” may also have been fraudulent, according to The New York Times.

Click Here to read the full story on the website.

Thousands of brave men and women gave their lives to ensure America has free elections. Let’s hope our election officials live up to their sacrifice. Sadly, some have not.