• Despite the state’s spotty history with transparency, The Sunshine Review has just increased the Kansas state website’s grade from a B- to a B thanks to redesigns made by Governor Sam Brownback’s administration. Kirstin McMurray, The Sunshine Review’s managing editor, maintains that the site could be further improved  by disclosing  any lobbying that state-funded organizations do to secure federal help for the state. State Representative Kasha Kelley seems to agree, pointing out, “We’ve been so busy dealing with the budget that no one’s pushed transparency issues. I  think budget issues and open government issues go hand in hand. The less you have to spend, the more you have to account for it.” To get the whole scoop, read Gene Meyer’s post on Statehouse News Online.

•  The Winchester Sun has asked Attorney General Jack Conway to review an executive session the Winchester-Clark County Parks and Recreation Board held before deciding to allow alcohol sales in a local park during a concert. The parks board responded, claiming that they had received legal threats from the public regarding the decision. According to the Kentucky Open Meetings Act, public bodies are required to conduct all of their business in an open session except when certain issues arise, including threatened or pending litigation. The Winchester Sun responded that the threat of legal action was “remote” and therefore the exemption did not apply. For the whole story, see Mike Farrell’s post on The Kentucky Open Government Blog.
•  In 2005, the Boston City Council faced a lawsuit that revealed 11 deliberately secret council meetings with Boston Redevelopment Authority and Boston University officials in 2003-05. The meetings violated the state Open Meeting Law and the court fined the council $11,000.  This week, Judge John Cratsley ruled that the Boston City Council no longer needed court monitored meetings to ensure they met the state’s Open Meeting Law. Crastley maintains, “There has been a positive change in the Council’s attitude toward and attention to the requirements of the Open Meeting Law.” Transparency advocate Shirley Kressel, the plaintiff in the case, is not convinced. She claims, “The loss is not ours. The loss is to the citizens as a whole.” For John Ruch’s take, read his post on The Mission Hill Gazette Blog.  
• Mayor Bloomberg has just launched NYC BigApps 3.0, a contest that challenges software developers to design mobile applications using official city data. The competition started in 2009 and is geared towards government transparency and improvement of the lives of New Yorkers. The fits nicely alongside Bloomberg’s stated commitment to increasing technology in New York. For more information, see Kristina Farrah’s post on Silicone Angle .

 

There are only a few days left and so many people to thank.

In Arizona, Espresso Pundit is one of my favorite local blogs.  Written by Greg Patterson who has been an elected official and worked extensively in public life.  Greg focuses on spending, earmarks, and public records.  He is also a fan of putting information online and also sharing information about legislative workshops on how bills become law.

In Kentucky, PageOne is a great blog for stories and investigating.  Written by Jacob Payne and several others, they write stories on public records and lobbyists who influence Frankfort.

In Mississippi, Y'All Politics is an online news magazine that covers all of Mississippi's news. They make sure to cover local ethics issues and lobbyist influence.  It is a great one stop shop for aggregated Mississippi information.

Three bloggers have some interesting stories about their Freedom of Information (FOIA) escapades.

In Kentucky, Page One has a post about the State Treasurer withholding public records.

On August 27 I filed an open records request for the following:

• All time sheets, calendars and schedules for State Treasurer Todd Hollenbach from the first date of his official service as Treasurer to present day
• Security camera footage from front entrance that would provide visual confirmation of arrival and departure of Todd Hollenbach from the first date of his service as Treasurer to current

On September 3 I received a letter from Deputy State Treasurer Mary John Celleti:

The Kentucky State Treasury is in receipt of your Open Records Request seeking copies regarding:

1. All time sheets, calendars and schedules for State Treasurer Todd Hollenbach
2. Security camera footage from the front entrance, confirming Treasurer Hollenbach’s arrival and departure.

Please be advised that the Treasury is in the process of filling said request and it may take some time to gather and review all the requested information. Due to the expansive nature of the security camera footage the request may be expected to take more than ten days. Once the documentation has been gathered and reviewed, it will be made available to you. If you have any questions, please feel free to call

It’s now been a month since I filed the request, so I decided to poke around a bit. Low and behold, with the help of great sources, I’ve learned that Todd Hollenbach and his henchman are trying to prevent access to the requested documents. Documents and media which, according to four people in the office of the Treasurer, prove that: Todd Hollenbach barely ever shows up for work, spends most days at a country club and goes out of his way to do absolutely nothing. So you know he’s got something to hide.

This is a pretty harsh claim but the point should be clear.  ANSWER YOUR FOIA REQUESTS!  By deciding to not disclose lawmakers hurt themselves in the public eye.  Then they have to deal with sharp bloggers picking on them.

In Arizona, Expresso Pundit has a post also about withholding public records and how a Councilman helped him get the records he wanted.

Surely you recall the Desert Divas. That's the ultra expensive VIP Prostitution ring that police busted last year.

Back in February, it looked like the case was going to break wide open...Prosecutors were naming names

Today, Phoenix police offered to the media a list of thousands of names in two hefty PDF documents.

Unfortunately, the list was a bust...so to speak. Prosecutors did indeed name names, but they didn't provide addresses. That meant that none of us had any idea if "John Smith" was THE John Smith that you know from the office, or tennis, or church. Without the addresses, the list was essentially meaningless.

So I went to Phoenix Police and said I wanted the whole list....you could hear the laughter from quite a distance. Every media outlet in the state wanted the full list and Phoenix PD wasn't going to provide it.

I pointed out that the clients on the list were neither victims or witnesses and that the record was obviously public.

The Phoenix PIO who called back, said simply, "Good Luck".

After a few months of dead ends, I finally went to my Secret Weapon--Sal DiCiccio. Councilman DiCiccio thinks that if information is public that it should actually be available to...you know...the public. DiCiccio sent his right hand guy, former Tribune writer Hal DeKeyser to take care of it and by golly, they stone walled him too...but persistence pays off.

I got a call last week that the list was available on CD. Well, you are the public too, So here's your copy.

It is great to see an elected official so committed to freedom of information that they will get the information for citizens. Also thanks Expresso Pundit for posting the results online so others can find it.

In Ohio, River Vices submitted a FOIA request and got a unique response.

Under Ohio's Open Public Records Law, I am requesting a copy of the written agreement between the city and the Portsmouth Kiwanis Club for a playground in Tracy Park. A week ago, on Sept. 18th, 2009, at a public meeting in Tracy Park,in response to a question, Rick Morgan of Kiwanis publicly acknowledged that such a written agreement existed, but neither he nor you have yet made that agreement public. Please notify me by email when I can pick up a copy of that agreement.

Thank you.

Robert Forrey

---

Per your public records request;

You are correct in stating that at the meeting in the park the fact was "acknowledged that such a written agreement existed". What I don't understand is why you feel that a confirmation of this fact would necessitate a publication or distribution of the mentioned document.

As you requested, a copy of the document has been prepared for you to pick up at my office. Our regular office hours are from 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM, Monday through Friday.

If there is anything else that I can do for you, which is required by law, don't hesitate to call my office. If it isn't required by law then don't bother asking, because I think that you're a worthless piece of st and I wouldn't ps on you if you were on fire (my opinion). You're a poor, lonely, jealous, old man with aspirations of being a writer. You write your lies and uneducated opinions on people and issues from behind the safety of your slobber stained keyboard with the hope that somebody will read them that doesn't know you and believe that you're more than the pitiful, broke-down, lizard-looking thing that you are, in my opinion. Get a life old man. On second thought, don't bother..............

I do have a question for you. Do you have family and if so do they even like you?

Looking forward to your next Internet issue of "FORREY'S FOLLIES".....NOOOTTTTTT

With little respect for you, Mayor James D. Kalb

Now that's freedom of speech at its best, in my opinion.

The mayor of of Portsmouth does get points for answering the FOIA but it seems that he might want to work on his prose.

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 Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nevada, and New Hampshire.

In Alabama, Flashpoint has a post about the a new ethics bill in Alabama and points to and editorial in the local paper saying lawmakers are dragging their feet around it.  This bill would put a cap on how much a lobbyist can spend on a lawmaker each day.  Currently lobbyists in Alabama only have to report if they spend more than $250 a day on a lawmaker.  The new bill would put a cap on lobbying spending to $50 a day and $250 a year. In Kentucky, Page One posted a list of companies and how much they spend on lobbying for influencing Frankfort.  The Kentucky Legislative Ethics Commission posts the info on their Web site.  The list is pretty interesting and you can continue looking on their site to see what other organizations are spending money to influence the state government. Louisiana's Between the Lines has a post about a bill coming up, "that would make officials in jurisdictions of over 5,000 people report on any contributions or loans above $1,000 they received from their political appointees."  The author goes into why this bill might not be the best idea.  He goes into how it could be a waste of taxpayer money to process this information.   He goes on to support a different bill that would put the burden on appointees not elected officials.  He says this will not use so many state resources to support disclosure requirements which he deems as a waste of taxpayer money. Nevada's Desert Beacon is preparing for the upcoming vote on healthcare reform by listing all the healthcare industry donations to  Sen. Ensign.  It would also to see the Maplight.org page for Sen. Ensign when the vote comes up. Democracy for New Hampshire has a post about upcoming legislation that would create exemptions to the state's right to know laws.  "HB 349 is trying to exempt legislator's e-mails from both right to know and court subpeonas; an earlier bill, HB 53, seeks to remove the secretary of state's office (and other executive agencies) from rightto know by redefining what a "public body" is."  How do you redefine a "public body"?  These bills seem pretty outrageous.  States should be making more available not less, let alone going to such extents as to redefine a state agency as not a public body.

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 Alabama, Florida, Hawaii, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Texas.

In Alabama, Left in Alabama highlights a scandal about Attorney General Troy King’s apparent conflict of interest.  Apparently King went to a party thrown by a developer and then three months later his office issued a legal opinion that said the developer could get a bingo permit for their upcoming project.  According to the author this isn't the first time King has been entertained by a special interest.  Alabama Power apparently treated King to a few luxury box baseball tickets back in 2006.

Florida Politics is copying a great idea started by Aldon Hynes in Connecticut.  He created a newswire “where the various state agencies, municipalities, state legislators, advocacy organizations, etc., could send their press releases and the like.”  This is a great idea a one stop shop for public relations people to send there info and for bloggers to get it.

In Hawaii, ILind.net has a post about the two special advisories that the State Ethics Commission had.  Apparently there had been complaints filed about legislators receiving free tickets to events from non profits.  The commission advised that taking these gifts would violate state ethics laws.

Kentucky’s The Bridge, uses Party Time to keep track of  what fundraisers Congresspeople are attending.  It is a pretty decent list of where their members of Congress will be.

Pennsylvania’s Keystone Politics has two interesting stories. The first one is a post about how four elected judges in Northampton County have presided over cases that involved a donor to their election campaign. Apparently the decision for what a conflict of interest is, is left to the judges to decided, so they don't have to recuse themselves if a donor appears before them.  This brings up whether the rules should be changed to require judges to recuse themselves if a donor is involved or if you want a favorable outcome you should make some quick campaign donations.

The second story is about former state democratic house leader Bill DeWeese who gave bonuses to his staff, who then donated that amount or close to that amount back to his campaign.

Capitol Annex, in Texas, talks about a bill that would give bloggers the same protection main stream media gets.  This allows bloggers to cover "matters of 'public concern,' such as legislative proceedings, school board meetings, and the actions of state officials" and not be sued for libel.  The author and a few other bloggers successfully testified, in favor of the bill, to the committee and seemed confident he received a fair hearing.

Kentucky is using twitter to share election day information to voters.

So if you're voting in Kentucky follow the assistant Secretary of State at twitter.com/KYTrey for the latest in election day news.

Government Technology reports that Kentucky just launched a draft of its E-Transparency Web site and is asking citizens to comment on it. The Web site will be fully operational by January 1, 2009 and will offer all kinds of information related to state spending, from a government spending database to a game that will allow citizens to see if they can balance the budget. So go check out the site and submit your feedback! They are collecting comments until October 17^th.

A government body giving an opportunity to citizens to have an influence over a government Web site is a rare occurrence. This will hopefully create a site that is not only informative but also user friendly.

So kudos Kentucky! I can't wait to see the final product.

This week I have highlights from Alabama, Kentucky, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Oregon.

In Alabama, Red State Diaries has a great post summarizing what the Alabama legislature did in the last few months.

In Kentucky, KYKurmudgeon has highlighted Gov. Beshear’s new executive orders that would enact stricter ethics laws on his administration.

MediaMouse.org in Michigan has a great post listing the western Michigan companies that received military contracts with information on how much the contracts are and from what army branch.

In Pennsylvania, Keystone Politics has a post on how state legislators are not reporting all the gifts they receive from lobbyists. The state’s new disclosure laws require lobbyists to report what gifts they have given lawmakers however some elected officials have not reported those gifts in their filings.

In Oregon, Open Government News and Issues highlights how the State House Small Business Committee is using YouTube to post its hearing testimony and question and answer sessions.