• 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.

• Following the Penn State child sexual abuse scandal, lawmakers want to strip state-related institutions’ exemption from Pennsylvania’s right-to-know law. State Representative Eugene DePasquale announced that he would introduce legislation making state-related institutions subject to the Act 3 of the law which requires all records of state and municipal governmental agencies to be open to public access, including financial documents, contracts and emails from university officials. State lawmakers and open government advocates said the legislation would increase transparency for institutions that receive taxpayer funds. However, in 2007, Penn State officials opposed the right-to-know law because of fear that it would result in less revenue from donors and private companies. Terry Mutchler, executive director of the Pennsylvania’s Office of Open Records matains that the law should be enforced, arguing, “anytime you have an entity that receives state dollars, there should be transparency.”‘ For Caleb Taylor’s take, read his post on Statehouse News Online.

Today I want to spotlight Triad Watch's great post on Greensboro, NC new policy on emails that are sent from City Council members.

On March 19, 2010 Greensboro City Manager Rashad Young sent out a memo to the Greensboro City Council members in regards to e mail accounts and how business is done with the local politicians. Here is what was in the memo . "Council Personal Emails Recently Council has received multiple request for city related emails that are from Council's personal email accounts. We have created an email account named Council_Public Emails. This account was created for your convenience. If you choose to use your personal email account, please forward city business related emails to this address: CPE@greensboro-nc.gov " This is great news to see the City Manager take this step in more transparency in local government. It seems like this move was in regards to request from Kotis Propereties to get emails and text messages from Greensboro City Council members because as we have seen in the past where City Council Member Robbie Perkins was text messaging his developer side kick from the council chambers while the council meeting was going on.. We also had Greensboro City Council member Trudy Wade bust out on Greensboro City Council member Zack Matheny for text messaging Ex City Council Member Tom Phillips during a council meeting so that Zack Matheny can get his marching orders from Tom Phillips.These are just a few examples of what is going on locally but need to be more transparent. It will be interesting to see just how many Greensboro City Council members comply with this new program and if they will start forwarding all city business from their personal accounts to this new e mail. Time for a weekly or monthly access to this email to see who is complying with this memo from the city manager.

We have reached the middle of the month, which means there  isn’t many days left in my 24 Days of Local Sunlight!  So let me get a thankin!

My thanks goes out to Annapolis Politics, Fighting 29th, South Texas Chisme and Triad Watch.

Annapolis Politics written by Brian Gill covers about Annapolis and surrounding areas.  Whether it's live blogging city council meetings or offering budget solutions Annapolis Politics is a great place to find information about the local government. I really liked his work highlighting shady elected official business and one of my favorites posts explaining campaign finance information.

Fighting 29th is a blog that focuses on the activities of its representative Eric Massa.  Written by Rottenchester who also maintains Congressdb, which you can use to compare congressional votes.  One of my favorite posts is the one that Rep. Massa voting against Time Warner even though they are one of his major donors.   Another great series of posts was about the previous occupier of district 29th's seat, former Rep. Kuhl and they were highlighting how difficult it was to find out how much congressional travel to other countries costs.  This blog is a great example of how to really follow your member of Congress.

South Texas Chisme is "a collection south Texas political gossip".  I like reading it because you can find a wide variety of different information not the least of which transparency related.  I have highlighted posts about personal financial disclosures and campaign finance reports.  It is very neat to be able to stop at one blog and see what is going on in a whole region.  I hope people see my local sunlight's that way too.  A snapshot of transparency in the local level.

Triad Watch is keeping an eye out on North Carolina, by doing research and keeping an eye out on what is going on on the local level.  Like this post about  local developers giving free rides to local elected officials to Washington, DC or posting the City of Greensboro's disbursements online to see what government money is working locally.

Triad Watch, from North Carolina, has great posts about the Mayor of Greensboro and the County Commissioner being offered free rides from North Carolina to Washington D.C. from a local developer.  Triad Watch and another blog question how ethical this trip is.  In response the trip was postponed when it was deemed to violate laws regarding gifts to elected officials.

Ed Cone writes today that local elected officials are flying to Washington D.C. to meet with our elected federal officials on securing federal money for a redevelopment project which the News & Record talked about CLICKHERE.

Here is the part of the post that needs to get a closer look and scrutiny, Ed Cone writes this,"The group will be flown to DC at no tax-payer expense by developer Roy Carroll, says Johnson." Here is the post CLICKHERE

We have a local developer in Roy Carroll who also has a local Political Action Committee call "North Carolinians for Leadership in Government " giving free airplane rides to local elected politicians in Mayor Johnson and Guilford County Commissioner Skip Alston.

Is it ethical and or legal for a local developer who already got tax incentives from both the greensboro city council and guilford county commissioners flying local elected officials to Washington D.C. ?

How will Roy Carroll report this on his political action committee?

These are some of the questions that need to be answered or talked about.