• In Georgia, Cumming Mayor Ford Gravitt removed citizen journalist Nydia Tisdale  from a recent public meeting. Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens is investigating whether Gravitt violated the state's sunshine laws. In an interview, Gravitt claimed that he was confused about the state’s Open Records Act. He thought it “only permitted people to take still pictures or video, and not both.” Check out the video of Tisdale being removed from the meeting  (around the 2:20 mark) by clicking on the image below. As she is being removed, she maintains, "This is an open and public meeting; I have a right by Georgia law to record this meeting." Ironically, this all took place on the same day that Governor Nathan Deal signed a rewrite of the state's Open Records Act into law. For more information, see Thomas Wheatly’s post on Fresh Loaf.
• After a six-year battle between open government advocates and those who opposed a new open government  bill, Iowa is getting a new state agency dedicated to enforcement of open government. The agency is meant to help solve disputes between governments and record seekers and will work as an enforcer to the state’s current open meetings laws. “The biggest benefit of having this is making sure that public records and meetings are open and available to Iowans,” said Chris Mudge, director of the Iowa Newspaper Association. For the whole story, check out Jason Clayworth’s post on the DesMoines Register.
• In 2011, more than 115 items, including  guns, drugs and money, came up  missing from the Asheville Police Department’s evidence room. Asheville City Council spent $175,000 in taxpayer money to fund an audit of the evidence room. According the the audit contract, a copy of the completed audit should have been made public to the city. The results of the audit were delivered to District Attorney Ron Moore in January. However, Moore  has ignored several open records requests and has not made the results of public. In doing so, Moore has failed to comply with state law requiring a response to open records requests “as promptly as possible.” Members of the local news media and the North Carolina Press Association are currently signing a petition to have the information made public. For the whole story, see David Forbes’ post on Mountain Xpress.
• Last week, we took a look at the aftermath of a contested mayoral election in New Mexico. The election is in the news again this week. The Doña Ana County district attorney’s office is investigating the possibility that the Sunland Park City Council violated the state's Open Meetings Act when it selected a new mayor following the election scandal. The meeting's venue was too packed to house the entire crowd. Many people – including at least two who wanted to ask for the appointment to the mayor’s job – were kept by police from entering. Though the state’s Open Meeting Act has rarely been enforced with criminal charges, it requires that anyone who tries to attend a public meeting of a government body be allowed in. For more information, see Heath Haussamen’s post on NMPoltics.
• On Tuesday, there was a public meeting in Dixon, Illinois to discuss allegation that the city comptroller embezzled $30 million dollars from the city. The meeting featured Dixon business owner and former candidate for state representative Li Arellano. Arellano focused the meeting on making city government more transparent.  A major point in the meeting was the city’s low transparency score from the Illinois Policy Institute and how the cities website failed to contain easily accessible financial information as required. According to the Illinois Policy Institute "A public posting of Dixon’s check register (expenditures) might have stopped the public corruption from happening in the first place." For Ulysses S. Arn’s take, see his post on USOFarn.

• This week, a comprehensive overhaul of the Georgia’s open government laws unanimously passed the Senate. House Bill 397 will now go back to the House so members can agree on changes made by the Senate. Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens, one of the bill's backers, maintains that it “makes great strides towards increasing transparency in Georgia.” Hollie G. Manheimer, executive director of the First Amendment Foundation, points out, “We are optimistic that HB 397 will pass in its current form, and that the attorney general will begin as soon as possible to address an increased number of open government violations. Stronger open government laws mean greater transparency for Georgia citizens.” For the whole story, see Kathleen Baydala Joyner’s post on ATLAW.
• California recently received a D-minus for government transparency. According to John Diaz, this low grade is mostly due to the state lacking a “checkbook” website that displays financial information online. Diaz maintains, “California, home of so much brilliance and innovation, should be ashamed that Texas and Kentucky lead the nation in using the tools of technology to make their government spending more transparent to their citizens. Even worse is that 35 other states scored higher than California in a recent analysis by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Perhaps most humiliating of all is that the technology that could have put California in the top tier in 2012 is not expected to be up and running until … 2017.” For his entire take, see his post on SF Gate.
• In Kentucky, a bill increasing secrecy at the Cabinet for Health and Family Services died in a Senate committee only to be revived minutes later in the House of Representatives. Critics of the measure worry the bill will “sharply curtail public access to details of child-abuse deaths and serious injuries, were outraged, saying the bill gives the cabinet more power to withhold information.” David Thompson, executive director of the Kentucky Press Association opposes the bill. Calling it a “secrecy bill.” Media attorney Jon Fleischaker testified the Senate committee about concerns over the lack of transparency the bill has for cabinet oversight, even though supporters were pushing it as a transparency bill. For the entire story, see Mike Farell’s post on the Kentucky Open Government Blog.
• According to a report by the State Integrity Investigation, Virginia has been ranked the fourth worst state regarding open government and anti-corruption laws and practices. The state earned a failing score of 55 and performed better than only Wyoming, South Dakota and Georgia. In his blog, Virginia  Senator Chap Petersen called the report “an example of the lamest, most superficial analysis.” For more information, see Nicole Trifone’s post on Fairfax City Patch.

This Sunshine Week is bringing in a series of remarkable citizens around the nation -- showing us that everyone can demand for open government from our leaders. Here today to share his one-man experience in opening up the City of Atlanta, is our guest blogger Matthew Cardinale. Matthew is the News Editor and Founder of the Atlanta Progressive News and a North American Correspondent for the Inter-Press Service.

Atlanta has had three names in its history: Marthasville, Terminus, and Atlanta.  My friend Jill and I joked that Terminus sounded like a more appropriate name to describe the City of Atlanta and their Law Department, with their endless financial resources, that is, courtesy of the taxpayers.  I guess it was because it sounded more cold and bureaucratic, more ruthless, evocative of the Terminator, evocative of Goliath.

I never intended to take on Terminus.  Actually, at the time I was trying to build relationships with newly elected Council Members and to strengthen relationships with incumbent Members.  So much for that!

I was concerned about efforts by Councilwoman Joyce Sheperd (District 12), newly appointed Chairperson of the Community Development/Human Resources (CD/HR) Committee, to limit public comment.  She had instituted an unprecedented five minute time limit at CD/HR and was one of several Council Members pushing for the Council to adopt a uniform rule to limit public comment in all seven Committees.  Currently, each Committee Chair has discretion to adopt their own rules, subject to being overruled by the Committee.

I think many of us concerned citizens were blindsided when at the Council Retreat at the Georgia Aquarium, while at lunch, Committee on Council Chairwoman Felicia Moore (District 9) took a so-called straw poll of members as to whether they wanted the Committee to draft a uniform rule. Seven Council Members voted yea; eight voted nay.

All I wanted to know was how everyone voted!

So I called Felicia Moore and asked her.  She said they didn’t record how the individual Council Members voted because they didn’t consider it an actual vote.  She said it was a straw poll because it wasn’t a vote on legislation; it was a vote on whether to draft legislation.

I requested a copy of the minutes of the Retreat from the Municipal Clerk, Rhonda Dauphin Johnson, and upon receiving them, noted the minutes merely said that Moore had led a discussion and that it was determined the Council was in favor of keeping the current rules.

So, then I looked up the law.  I found OCGA 50-14-1(e)(2), a section of the Georgia Open Meetings Act, said that the minutes shall record all motions and “other proposals.”  I then told Moore and the Committee that the secret vote was a vote on an “other proposal.”Moore repeatedly insisted it wasn’t a secret vote, because as she said, “You can’t take a secret vote at an open meeting.”  I replied if it wasn’t a secret, to tell us how everyone voted!

At that point, Moore sought the opinion of the Law Department.  Senior Assistant City Attorney Kristen Denius provided an opinion that stated that because it was not a roll call vote, that the vote details did not have to be recorded. I then pointed to another provision in the statute regarding non-roll call votes.

OCGA 50-14-1(e)(2): “In the case of a roll-call vote the name of each person voting for or against a proposal shall be recorded and in all other cases it shall be presumed that the action taken was approved by each person in attendance unless the minutes reflect the name of the persons voting against the proposal or abstaining.”

I said, don’t you see that for non-roll call votes it said you must list the names of the persons voting against the proposal or abstaining?  I then said I was considering filing a lawsuit.  At that point, Moore said to go ahead and whatever I felt was necessary, but that she would not be asking the Clerk to ask Council Members how they voted.

So, at that point I had already threatened to file a lawsuit. Unfortunately, I was not successful in finding an attorney willing to take on my case on contingency.  So, I had to sue without one.  Of course, if you threaten to sue and don’t do it, then your threat has no value in the future.  So I had to sue pro se.

Before doing so, I warned Council Members that I would also be seeking criminal misdemeanor fines against them in their personal capacities.  I asked all fifteen Council Members for their individual votes, promising not to seek fines against them if they told me how they individually voted.  After a continuous campaign, nine disclosed their votes, while six refused. So, I ended up suing the City of Atlanta, the secret six, Moore, Council President Ceasar Mitchell, and Clerk Johnson.

As a journalist, I already had some experience reading legal documents and felt comfortable with the basic outlines of the legal process.

Matthew Cardinale outside Atlanta City Hall: Photo credit by Joeff Davis

My friend Dwanda used Google to find two lawsuits filed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).  I used one of them as a template for my initial Complaint.  I simply changed the facts that occurred, the parties, the venue, the causes of action, the relief sought, and of course the laws referenced, from FOIA to the Georgia Open Meetings Act (OMA).I filed my pro se lawsuit in May 2010 in Fulton County Superior Court and the case was assigned to Judge Christopher Brasher.

The City filed a Motion to Dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. They said that because the OMA did not require the listing of the names except in cases of a roll-call vote, that even if my allegations were all true, that they did not break the law. I filed discovery, including several Interrogatories upon several Council Members and the Municipal Clerk.  I filed a reply to their Motion to Dismiss.

Then, I was shocked when, in August 2010, Judge Brasher granted their Motion to Dismiss.

Brasher ruled the statute did not state that the minutes had to list the names of those voting against the proposal or abstaining, merely that we had to assume the vote was unanimous if those names were not listed.  So go ahead, he basically said, assume the vote was unanimous!

However, the vote, we already knew, was split, seven to eight, so the ruling was forcing us to assume something that wasn’t true.So in October 2010, I appealed to the Court of Appeals of Georgia.  An attorney who was giving me advice up until that point warned me not to appeal, said I would set bad case law, said that my chances of prevailing were slim, and asked whether I wanted to spend two to three years on this.

I argued, and cited case law, that a court should look beyond the literal language of a statute when a literal construction would lead to absurdity.  I argued that the Act should be interpreted broadly, in favor of openness, consistent with the intent of the Act. I found two scholarly journal articles in two different law school journals that wrote about the intent of the Act at the time of its passage in 1988, and cited these as well. Unfortunately, the Court of Appeals ruled against me in February 2011.  This time, even the Georgia First Amendment Foundation advised me against wasting my time on appealing.

But I filed a Petition for Certiorari to the Supreme Court of Georgia in March 2011, which they granted--a rare accomplishment in itself-- in July 2011.  I made oral arguments before the Supreme Court in October 2011, which are available online here

I filed a Supplemental Brief in November 2011. Then, in February 2012, the Supreme Court ruled in my favor, that the names of those voting against or abstaining do have to be listed in the case of a non-roll call vote

This was such a great day.  I held a press conference on the steps of City Hall, and got to go down to the Council Meeting, which was being held that day, to tell them about themselves. There are so many aspects to this victory.  Not only are secret votes now banned across the entire State of Georgia, but my case sets strong case law that the Act must be construed broadly in favor of openness.

The ruling also lets ordinary citizens know that there is an Open Meetings Act, and an Open Records Act, that gives them the mechanisms to hold elected officials accountable, and that if they just engage the process provided by the Act, sometimes they can win, even without an attorney.

I had another victory last week when on March 05, 2012, the Council adopted a resolution to amend the minutes of the February 2010 Council Retreat to list the names of those voting yea and those voting nay. That was awesome; a bit anticlimactic for the impact of the action in comparison to the two year struggle it took to make them take the action, but it was pretty cool that I basically forced them to do something they really, really did not want to do.

As it stands now, the case is in remittur back to the trial court, via theCourt of Appeals.  The Court of Appeals currently has it and says it may not have time to deal with it for another few weeks or months. When it arrives back at the trial court, I hope for a speedy resolution.  I have asked the City to contact me regarding a possible Consent Decree, but have not heard from them as of yet. I also have a second lawsuit against the City for a variety of Open Meetings and Open Records violations that is currently pending in Fulton County Superior Court.

I’m currently in the process of applying to Law Schools and am waiting to hear back about possibly beginning Law School this Fall Semester 2012. I hope to eventually be able to help citizens across the State of Georgia who require an attorney represent them in Court.

I also have a more long-term project that I am interested in pursuing which is to develop a website to help more ordinary citizens in Georgia to file their own pro se lawsuits.  There are so many lessons I learned that I would like to share with others so that, frankly, they do not have to make some of the same mistakes I did.  And so they won’t have to learn everything from scratch.

Robots and gentlepeople, it is with great pleasure that I announce (and humbly invite you to attend) Sunlight’s fifth TransparencyCamp, coming to the DC area this April 28th - 29th. If you know the drill and you’ve been waiting for the link, head here to register. Otherwise, sit a while and let me tell you some tales.

What is TransparencyCamp?

TransparencyCamp (or TCamp as we like to call it) is an “unconference” focused on government transparency. We interpret that focus pretty broadly, encouraging all manner of folks to attend. At TCamp, you’ll meet government officials, opengov advocates, journalists, bloggers, technologists, information designers, developers, academics, students, hacks, hackers, multimedia producers, activists, council reps and wonks (just to name a few) who have come with the common purpose of learning, teaching, best-practice sharing, next-step taking, and community building for “opengov”.

Although Sunlight has mostly worked on US federal level open government, when we talk about “government” at TCamp, we’re talking about all levels of government -- local, state, national -- and we’re talking about governments outside the US, too. Last year, 23 transparency advocates from 14 different countries joined the conversations at TCamp, thanks to generous sponsorships by the Omidyar Network and the Open Society Institute. Each international fellow took the lead (or co-lead) of a session at TCamp, not just to share the variety of experiences they’ve had working for transparency in their home countries, but to jointly problem-solve issues with American advocates in fields like citizens engagement, supporting watchdog organizations and connecting with civic hacking communities.

This year, we’re expecting more international Campers and more US Campers, too. If you’re an advocate who would love to share the work you do (or work through the issues you’re up against), but are concerned about the cost of travel, point your mouse here to learn more about our TCamp Scholarship program. If you’d like to help us make it easier for folks outside the Beltway to make it to TransparencyCamp, donate as a Super Camper. Any amount you contribute over $20 will help reduce the cost of TCamp and support our travel stipends for TCamp Scholars.

We’ll be blogging more about the organizing process of TCamp as the event approaches, but I want to end this post with two “TCamp Tid Bits,” if you will:

1. We’ve opened up an area where folks can brainstorm session ideas and vote for their favorites. (Check it out -- and contribute! -- here.) So far, my personal favorite is Josh Tauberer’s recommendation for transparency-themed Battledecks. Sounds hilarious. What do you think?
2. It’s hard not to talk about TCamp Scholars without talking about Tamar Gurchiani. Tamar attended last year’s Camp on a TCamp scholarship and, a year later, is now working on bringing TransparencyCamp to Georgia (the country). If you haven’t seen it already, take a peek at her announcement post while you enjoy your lunch.

This guest blog comes from Sunlight's Organizing Fellow, Tamar Gurchiani, who is leaving us today after a wonderful three months to head back to her home country, Georgia. We'll let Tamar (a lawyer, long time freedom of information advocate, and former TransparencyCamp scholar) speak for herself in the entry below, but first we have to note that we didn't pay her (or even advise her!) to make the way-too-gracious statements below.

Now, enough about us. Keep reading to learn about the current state of transparency in post-Soviet Georgia...and what's around the corner.

***

Can the classified information in one country be publicly available in another? Yes if the first country is post-soviet Georgia, where unlike the US, “in the face of doubt, still secrecy prevails.”

In March of 2010, the Georgian government refused to disclose the contracts between the Security Council of Georgia and several US lobbying firms (including Orion Strategies, Public Strategies, and the Podesta Group). The contracts were requested through the General Administrative Code (the Freedom of Information Law in Georgia) by the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association, a non-profit I worked with before I came to the US to study law. During the litigation process, I was able to find the documents my country was hiding from us in the Sunlight’s foreign lobbying influence tracker.

At TransparencyCamp DC this spring, I finally met, in person, the Sunlighters who build those amazing tools for greater transparency. And, during the last three months, I had a wonderful opportunity to work with them -- the most creative, professional and inspirational people I’d ever met in my life. I had a wonderful chance to see myself how technology can be used for the public interest and how big its impact is on every citizen’s life in the US.

But who is responsible for digitizing the official data and then make it available via the Internet in countries like Georgia? The government does not necessarily regard the Internet as basic infrastructure like roads, waste and water. From 2000 to 2010 the Internet usage in Georgia increased from 0.5 % to 28.3 %. Georgian freedom of Information legislation was enacted in 2000 but no legal obligation exists yet for online transparency.

Transparency communities can grow if the basic infrastructure is in place and they don’t have a constant fear that the government will shut them down whenever it needs to. They also grow when government makes public information available to the public without lengthy and expensive litigation process.

A few days ago, the Associated Press published a new study on Right to Know Laws. The study found that the newer democracies were in general more responsive than some developed ones. Before that, Access Info Europe and Centre for Law and Democracy conducted the Ask Your Government! 6 Question Campaign where France, with a 32 year-old FOI law, was among the poorest performing countries and Georgia, with only 11 years of experience, ranked as number two among the best performing countries.

In 2008, Georgia was among the first 12 countries that ratified the Council of Europe Convention on Access to Official Documents - the first legally binding international document recognizing access to information as a fundamental human right. Not to mention the other commitments my country has taken within the UN, OECD and GRECO frameworks.

Why are the countries like Georgia the first ratifiers of those conventions? Unfortunately the answer not always the healthy inclination to transparency, but a response to so-called collateral consequences (investments, international reputation etc.) Somebody might say that nothing is wrong if a country cares about its image. I would agree with that, but I’m sure for many of you the French example came as a surprise. If this is the “result” of good reputation, no, we cannot afford it.

But it’s up to us to make sure that these rankings translate into better practice.

With this goal, in May of 2012 more than 20 Georgian partners including Open Society - Georgia Foundation, Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association, Transparency International - Georgia, Institute for Development of Freedom of Information and Open Maps Caucasus will make TransparencyCamp Georgia happen. Representatives of the Georgian government and international donors, journalists, developers and civic activists will gather to find out where we are now, what resources and potential we have. TransparencyCamp Georgia will be a great meeting place for both the people who already know what should be done and the people who know how to do it by using technology.

TransparencyCamp Georgia was inspired by TransparencyCamp DC, the most impressive part of which, to me, was its setting. Will an “unconference” - an event run with a certain level of self-organization, audience-driven agenda, and voting for the each presentation topic - work in Georgia where most of the (even transparency themed) conferences mean long monotone (read: boring) speeches?

I’d been asking these questions to myself before my first meeting after Camp with Sunlight’s Laurenellen McCann. At this meeting Laurenellen revealed Sunlight’s secret of success: experimenting and learning by mistakes. Few months later, Georgian Vice Prime Minister Giorgi Baramidze said at Johns Hopkins University that “with mistakes and failures we [Georgia] are moving forward.” TransparencyCamp Georgia will be the experiment and test for moving forward to transparency.

Sunlight's Organizing Team: Wishing Tamar (second from the right) well in continuing her work back home.

Every week I climb into the depths of the local political blogosphere to find the Sunlight. I use this series to highlight local blogs that do a great work by covering local, state, and congressional political news. This week I have highlights from New Mexico, Georgia and Illinois.

New Mexico FBIHOP has been live blogging the New Mexican legislative session.  This year is a short 30 day session covering mostly budgetary issues.  Matt is doing a great job keeping on top of what is going on, along with the live streaming action on New Mexico Independent this legislative session will be well accounted for.  In the coming weeks we will be keeping track of the up and coming transparency initiatives in the state, so stay tuned.

Peach Pundit has a post about a former candidate for Governor's PAC, which hasn't filed a campaign report in a while, but had a great deal of money left over.   The blogger wondered if they had to continue to file if they had any left over funds. Apparently they do not have to disclosure left over funds and can do whatever they wants with it.

Illinois' The Quincy Pundit has a post about strange practices in the Quincy City Hall.  The City Attorney sent out a letter to people in the community, on official letterhead, basically asking them to not vote for a particular candidate for Mayor because that candidate would fire him.  Well, isn't that special.

I also wanted to point out this awesome article by MediaShift highlighting great work by 3 local bloggers from around the country.  I think this quote by blogger Chuck Welch sums up the local political bloggersphere perfectly.

"I think there are cases now where city council or city staff might be more cognizant that just because the newspaper reporter is not in the room it doesn't mean the community is not going to learn about whatever it is they are doing."

It is widely accepted that citizen journalists doesn't replace investigative journalists, however, that doesn't discount how important they are to keep track of local government.  With the recent court decision transparency is more important than ever we need people willing to dig through disclosure data and an active political blogosphere is where we look to find them.

Every week I climb into the depths of the local political blogosphere to find the Sunlight. I use this series to highlight local blogs that do a great job of covering local, state, and congressional political news.  This week I have highlights from Wisconsin, Illinois, Idaho, Georgia and Hawaii.

In Wisconsin, the Critical Badger, has an interesting post about the current state of journalism and the future of Web 2.0.   The post is interesting because it talks about the important role of trained journalists to the blogosphere and that they can't be replaced.   Another problem is that the decrease in newspapers causes large parts of  public life to go unmonitored, which can make elected official less accountable in their actions.  The post also looks at the sustainability problems of political blogging.  Definitely read it, as well as all the great research the author sites.  How do we create a sustainable system that will compensate skilled journalists, as well as, the hard work bloggers put into keeping track of their communities and disseminating information.

In Illinois, Prairie State Blue points to a new county Web site that shows employees salaries and expressing support of the Clout Wiki started in Chicago that connects officials and the influence they have.  This is exactly why the work that LittleSis.org is doing is so important.  Creating comprehensive maps of influence can help paint better pictures of what is going on.

New West Boise has a post on how you can't look at government officials emails with the state's FOI laws.  The article goes on to say that there is very little in terms of email retention policies at the state level.  Given how email is used in this day and age it would be extremely valuable for states to start having email retention policies, as well as, making sure emails are available via Freedom of Information.

In Georgia, Peach Pundit has a post comparing Ethics Code and points out that there is little teeth is the code because it doesn't require lawmakers to be removed from office if they violate it.  There needs to be clear consequences when lawmakers violate ethics rules.  This is one of the first steps to clearing up some of the corruption that happens.

ILind.net has a follow up to Lt. Governor Duke Aiona's out of state fundraisers.  Apparently the video of the fundraiser was deleted from Youtube.  Was this a response to the criticism?