Sunshine Week Day 2
In the spirit of Sunshine Week, here’s the open government question of the day:
What could your local city do to be more transparent?
Here are a couple of ideas from the cities I cover (and these can be applied to all SGV cities). In La Verne, the City Clerk's office could make audio of all City Council meetings available online for review, with the accompanying agenda and staff reports. Right now, only the agendas are available online. But what if a resident can't attend a meeting? They could call the city and ask for a recap, or they could listen to the audio for themselves and draw their own conclusions.
And in Baldwin Park, La Puente and La Verne, the city clerks could make all campaign contribution statements (Form 460s) and statements of economic interests (Form 700s) for all council members available online. Open-government laws already state that these forms have to be readily available for the public to review. But if they were accessible via the Internet, it would save not only the city clerk's time but the public's time. Plus, I can almost guarantee that if this stuff was online, more people would likely view it.
I should note, Baldwin Park is making efforts to do this for all 460s now.
Comments
Make all the documents FREE! That, and make everything available online, including a live webcast of the council meetings.
Posted by: Jennifer McLain | March 18, 2008 2:21 PM
Insure that the city representative, usually the city clerk and custodian of records, is aware of the requirements set forth in the CPRA! It is amazing how many city clerks simply don't understand the requiremnents for providing public records.
Additionally, a change in the remedy available for violating the law is needed. Currently, the public must effectively act as a "private attorney general" and sue to compel compliance by the agency. Violations should carry a misdemeanor charge, thus allowing the local District Attorney to pursue compliance and removing the financial burden currently placed on the public.
And of course, it would be great if each agency moved into the new world and simply offered all records via the internet....but don't hold your breath.
Posted by: gilman | March 18, 2008 3:43 PM
Sure, let's have every city put everything online. It's just as easy as it sounds, isn't it? Hey, I've got a great idea! Let's just take money from public services, such as police departments, to pay for these improvements! 'Cause how much could something like that cost? Not much, I'm sure. Oh wait...
Posted by: Anonymoose | March 18, 2008 7:20 PM
I don't think that it would be that difficult to put everything online, if we were to start from today. If today, for example, the city of Rosemead began posting all of its staff reports and public documents online, that would be a good start. How hard can that be? After all, the documents are already computerized -- how much money and time can that really take?
When it gets to the point where newspapers are having to post a city's staff reports online, than the city is failing its residents.
As far as the webcast, sure, that is costly. And of course, no one wants to see a cut in police services.
But maybe that money could come from somewhere else in the budget. Let me just go look on their budgets online. Oh wait...
Posted by: Jennifer McLain | March 18, 2008 8:55 PM
Rosemead has made great strides considering that it didn't have a functional website until only two years ago...
Posted by: Anonymous | March 18, 2008 11:07 PM