Whose responsibility is it to pay for access to public records?
The story out of California this week about its public records process, and how the state reimburses local governments for complying with the state's public records act, raises some difficult questions about how states and municipalities interface on certain transparency-related issues. How does a state determine when it owes its local governments for being open to the public? And just how is such a cost calculated? There are many aspects of the public records process that could be given a financial value: staff time, servers, software, paper, ink … and although California seems poised to change its policy of reimbursing local governments for costs related to public records, many questions remain. However the costs of public records are counted, the dollars and cents don’t address whether a state should be financing its local agencies' participation in transparency laws.
The latest news out of a rollercoaster week in California is that the legislature and Governor have responded to the outcry about the proposed slashing of public records requirements for local governments and seem to be in agreement that they will instead maintain the requirements and related funding.
Continue readingLocal Advocate Helps Amp Up Atlanta Open Meetings Law
States have complex levels of authority over municipalities, but that doesn't stop cities from crafting transparency reforms that lead locally and could impact state operations, too.
This week, Atlanta proved to be a great example of such leadership. The city council unanimously approved an amendment to the open meetings ordinance making it stronger than the language of Georgia's state law.
The events leading up to this change are explained in this story by Matthew Charles Cardinale of Atlanta Progressive News. Cardinale helped draft and push for the legislation after filing a lawsuit challenging closed-door sessions of city council committee meetings. Cardinale argued that there was case law, decided by the Court of Appeals of Georgia, supporting his position that even some meetings without a quorum of members have to be open to the public. State law only explicitly states that meetings with a quorum have to be open.
Continue readingRecommendations for Stronger Zoning Data
Releasing zoning data is an important first step to developing a better public understanding about this local government process that impacts the most physical elements of neighborhoods. Having better standards for releasing this information could lead to even better understanding of zoning and its impacts, encouraging more reuse and analysis of the data in apps, news stories and beyond.
While zoning is an especially complex dataset because of its its many variables from city to city, among other reasons, there are a few steps cities could take to improve the quality of this data and its ability to be reused and analyzed. Many of these ideas can be found in our Open Data Policy Guidelines.
1. Mandate timeliness -- Releasing zoning data in a timely manner, and updating it when changes are made, gives people a chance to be aware of and react to changes that might impact them.
2. Use open formats -- Open, structured data helps encourage reuse and analysis, and for zoning data releasing several different kinds of open structured data might be helpful for different levels of users. CSV or XML files are formats that can be used for spreadsheets with zoning information. File formats specific to geospatial software, from shapefiles to GeoJSON, can help encourage the development of more advanced apps and mapping of zoning data.
Continue readingThe Impact of Opening Up Zoning Data
The content, format, and quality of the zoning information municipalities share varies widely. Posting this information online empowers policymakers to better understand the impact of their decisions and allows people to provide accountability on the process. Access to this information can also help people understand what they are or are not allowed to do -- but zoning data, even in an open format, is not always easy to understand. Thankfully, having this data publicly available has also enabled applications and news stories that contextualize the information and show people just how zoning regulations and processes can impact them.
Take a look, for example, at Second City Zoning created by the folks at Open City Apps in Chicago, Illinois. This app breaks down complex zoning regulations into categories that would make sense to someone who's not at all familiar with Chicago's specific codes. Users can look at the city's zoning by type (residential, commercial, or industrial) and by special purpose districts, such as planned development, transportation, parks, and open space. Hovering a computer mouse over any of these categories also reveals a short pop-up explanation of what that category means. Clicking on the interactive map allows users to see what exists on a certain section of land, ranging from parks and playgrounds to shopping centers and tall buildings. Visualizing zoning data in this way enables people to easily see what zoning regulations mean in practice, and it allows them to research how different zoning might lead to a changed landscape. Second City Zoning's About section also has explanations related to the zoning processes and regulations, further empowering users to understand just what this complex dataset can mean in practice.
Continue readingThe Landscape of Municipal Zoning Data
Zoning impacts the most physical elements of communities and impacts people's daily lives. When it comes to being transparent about the zoning process and its outcomes, many local governments are posting information -- one way or another -- on their websites. It's a varied landscape, but it is worth assessing to see where there might be room for improvement.
WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT ZONING
It's not surprising, in a way, that so many local governments choose to proactively release various kinds of information related to zoning. Zoning regulations can impact everything from what can be built and where it can be built to how it can be built and more. How a lot is zoned doesn't just determine whether that land can be used for commercial or residential purposes (or something else entirely) -- it can also determine the very structure of buildings down to details like height and square footage. Zoning and planning ordinances can even impact how close certain kinds of buildings may be to one another -- schools and liquor stores are one example of a spatial relationship that is sometimes regulated. Zoning has an impact on many of the most concrete aspects of a municipality, and this makes it an issue that's of interest to residents, business owners, developers, and many other groups. This means zoning can also be a prime target for people who want to game the system to obtain influence over this important aspect of cities.
The zoning process generally consists of elected or appointed officials making decisions about how land can be used and the specifications of structures. It has a direct impact on the shape communities take. The zoning process, and what it controls, however, varies from place to place. That means it's important for each municipality to be clear about what its process is so policymakers, residents, and businesses alike can all understand this powerful issue. For this look into the landscape of zoning data, we're including information most directly related to the process and its outcomes. We're not including other data that might be tied to land parcels, like data about tax breaks or special tax zones.
Not all zoning data is created equal, of course. Some cities simply release a list of the ordinances related to zoning, others release PDF maps of how land parcels are zoned, and some have interactive maps with layers of information. To have open zoning data, a municipality should have structured data available online that makes it easy for people to analyze and reuse -- in addition to information that enables people to understand the zoning process.
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2Day in #OpenGov 5/20/2013
NEWS:
- Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) is reintroducing the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act this week. The legislation unanimously passed the House last year only to die in the Senate. (FCW)
- Bipartisan legislation has been introduced to require a court order for federal agencies before the seizure of phone records. (The Hill)
- Hearings started Friday as the House looks into why the IRS targeted certain groups for extra scrutiny. The hearing, in front of the House Ways and Means Committee, was the first of several scheduled on the topic. (Washington Post) Continue reading
2Day in #OpenGov 5/17/2013
NEWS:
- A new discussion draft of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act was released this week, and a bill is expected to follow soon. (FedScoop)
- Project Open Data is already fielding submissions ranging from fixing broken links to policy suggestions. (FedScoop)
- The U.S. CIO said there are anecdotal examples of the economic benefits of open data, but there is no definite tally of open data's impact. (FCW) Continue reading
2Day in #OpenGov 5/16/2013
NEWS:
- U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder declined to say whether there would be a review of the Department of Justice procedures on searching journalists' records. DOJ has been under scrutiny after the AP revealed the Department had seized more than two months of phone records. (NPR)
- The White House is pushing for a media shield bill that would protect reporters from certain penalties for not revealing confidential sources, among other things. (New York Times)
- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said the Senate is working to confirm a commissioner for the IRS, which has lacked a confirmed head since November. (Roll Call)
- The acting commissioner of the IRS resigned on Wednesday at the request of President Obama, several days after an audit revealed the IRS targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny. (Washington Post) Continue reading
When Are Public Officials’ Calls and Emails Public Records?
Public officials are elected or appointed to do the people's business, but what happens to transparency when they do that business through private channels? There have been cases across the country revolving around public officials using private methods of communication -- like personal email accounts or cell phones -- to conduct public business. When citizens request to know more about business done by their representatives, these private communications have, at times, served as blocks to the public's right to access information. As some of these cases are being decided in courts, we've seen a wide variety of responses from state and local governments about how to handle this public records issue.
In Alaska, such a case made it all the way to that state's Supreme Court. A citizen questioned the practice of former Governor Sarah Palin using a personal email account to conduct public business. Alaska's Supreme Court decided that if the state's employees use personal email for public business, those records must be made available to the public.
At least one government body on the other side of the country reached a similar conclusion about the value of keeping public business in the public record. The Washington, D.C., council voted to require members and employees to conduct public business on their public accounts. This move came after an open government group sued the council for not sharing public business done on personal accounts. The Mayor has also directed government employees to stay away from using personal email accounts for official business.
Not all government bodies are moving toward requiring this kind of disclosure, unfortunately.
Continue reading2Day in #OpenGov 5/15/2013
NEWS:
- As questions grow about why the U.S. Department of Justice secretly obtained two months of phone records from AP journalists, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said he was not the one to authorize the seizure. (The Hill)
- The SEC is considering whether publicly-traded corporations should have to disclose their political spending to shareholders. (The Hill)
- Senior executive, legislative, and judicial branch officials will have to fill out personal finance reports by May 15. (Roll Call)
- Documents show it wasn't just staff in the IRS Cincinnati office who knew conservative groups were targeted for scrutiny -- details of the actions appear to have reached higher-ups in the agency by mid-2012. (Washington Post) Continue reading
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