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.

How can New Mexico be more transparent?

The New Mexico Independent ran an article in April that compiled several takes on New Mexico’s transparency. It asked: “How can New Mexico be more transparent?” and asked for several takes on an answer. Basically, there’s room for improvement.

One obvious answer, however, to how the state can be more transparent is an overhaul of its open records and open meetings acts.

Bill Turner, a hydrologist and former director of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, noted that disclosing data isn’t the full scope of transparency. He details what are essentially problems with the execution of the state’s open records and open meetings act, the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act. He details several problems he and others have had in trying to receive information from New Mexico offices and how these offices, either because of ignorance or purposeful information blocking, have refused to disclose information. “Our state legislators don’t even want webcasts of legislative sessions and committee sessions.”

The execution of the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act leaves room for improvement, but so does the law itself. For example, the cap on what a government can charge for a page of a record is $1. Perhaps for people who haven’t FOIA’d records, that sounds reasonable. But consider the fact that in order to have complete records for multiple years, FOIA responses can be hundreds, and thousands, of pages. And there’s the fact that the actual cost of making a copy is closer to 10¢.

A stronger law, with “teeth,” could help remedy the issues Turner has experienced. Illinois was facing similar problems with compliance with its Freedom of Information Act and the situation forced the legislature and Attorney General to come up with a stronger law governments would be compelled to follow. The new law was drafted to include what is in practice a cap on the amount governments can charge for information: if it isn’t “reasonable,” then that counts as noncompliance. Fees for noncompliant governments are up to $5000 . Being someone with experience in sending requests to local governments in Illinois, I can confidently say that these stipulations in the open records law really do work to motivate governments to provide as much information as possible in the most timely manner. The law in effect makes it so that when deciding whether to disclose information, the government must lean towards disclosure.

As Paul Gessing of the Rio Grande Foundation notes in that same article, the current law allows for many, many loopholes for local governments and agencies to forgo disclosing information.

This is being abused. For instance, state agencies cite federal FOIA law exemptions to create exemptions to the New Mexico obligation to produce records. They are two distinct governments. The exemptions and coverage of FOIA are separate from IPRA. The same reasoning would allow a state agency to cite tribal law, or the municipal law of Tupelo, Mississippi, or the internal code of Zimbabwe as they search for some law, somewhere–anywhere–that might give them an out.

And, he notes, it does not cost $1 to make a copy.

For more on New Mexico’s transparency, take a look at some of the wealth of information we have on Sunshine Review:

*New Mexico state government salary
*Evaluation of New Mexico counties website transparency
*Evaluation of New Mexico school district website transparency
*Evaluation of New Mexico state website transparency
*New Mexico government corruption
*New Mexico transparency legislation

Public meeting notices need to go viral

Well, at least the notices for Public Meetings do. Currently, it’s legally required for public notices to be posted 24 hours prior to the meeting. 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 Op-Ed:

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?

Rio Grande Foundation and New Mexico Sunshine

I stumbled across this transparency website called NewMexicoVotes.org that was created by the Rio Grande Foundation. It is dedicated to shining a light on the actions of the New Mexico Legislature …. and it is needed!!!

This site will allow anyone to look up and track pieces of legislation as well as allow them to contact their legislator. It appears that the Rio Grande staff is adding more and more information each day!

This easy to use site will be a great asset to the voters of New Mexico as they track the bills and votes in the legislature. I wish activists in every state had access to this excellent transparency tool.

Click here to visit the site.