Nagin defends gagging city contract panel
May 20, 2008
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is under fire again for a lack of transparency- this time in city contracts. According to New Orleans CityBusiness, Nagin issued an executive order in 2005 that made all executive branch contract review panel meetings confidential and prohibits disclosure of information to third parties.
Two N.O. city council members, Arnie Fielkow and Shelley Midura, are pressing Nagin for more transparency. It is the practice of the city council to have an open forum for committees to consider legislative branch city contracts, which currently total about $9.9 million. Unfortunately, the mayor controls executive branch contracts (the bulk of the contracts) through his closed-door meetings.
Nagin’s defends his lack of transparency to CityBusiness:
Via an e-mailed response, Nagin’s press office answered questions about transparency saying “Requests for bids and proposals are advertised and posted on the city’s website; review committees include an outside evaluator and now also are attended by a representative from the Office of the Inspector General and final contracts are public documents.”
However…
Inspector General Robert Cerasoli said his staff has only been “notified two or three times” of meetings.
Oops.
Janet Howard, president and CEO of the Bureau of Governmental Research, had this to say:
“Talk about transparency,” Howard said. “(The city has) a confidentiality agreement as opposed to an open transparent approach to contracting.”
Another concern of Howard’s is that “professional services” is a “very loose concept.”
“Anything that has a service component, even if you have a piece that’s equipment, gets treated as a professional services contract,” she said. “So (the administration) puts a lot of things into professional services that shouldn’t be there. The downtown trash cans were treated as a professional services contract.”
According to the article, Howard is also concerned about the history of N.O. mayors reaping a windfall of campaign contributions from businesses that have or desire city contracts, creating a “pay to play” atmosphere.
Note to Nagin: Open up your books, and no one gets hurt (by more bad press).
Oklahoma Transparency Kudos
May 19, 2008
I have been browsing around state websites today to identify some shining examples of government transparency. One of the best is Oklahoma’s OpenBooks site, which details state spending in more ways than you can rope a cow. (Okay, I have no idea about cow roping, but I do know they have a Grade-A transparency website.)
The site details state appropriations, spending restrictions, details about the education lottery and rainy day fund, and even information on the Oklahoma budget process.
The only controversial portion seems to be the “Where does the state’s money come from?” section. It includes this chart: (click to enlarge)
One might argue that you could decode the chart categories by saying…
- “taxes and interest” = taxes
- “license/permit/tuition/fees” = taxes
- “federal grants” = redistributed taxes
- “assets held for others” = unclaimed property
Therefore, I think the page would be much more honest if there was a tagline to the chart that stated “OK government is 100% Taxpayer Funded.”
That issue aside, OpenBooks is a great example of how transparent government should be.
Homework: Ask your elected officials to match Oklahoma’s lust for spending disclosure. (If you’re from Oklahoma, see if you can get that tagline added for me.)
Hey Mayor Nagin, secrets don’t make friends
May 19, 2008
With the approach of the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the Times-Picayune’s Sunday editorial offers some timely advice for New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin in rebuilding the city.
No matter how weary he may be, no matter how difficult the work may be, Mayor Nagin promised voters in 2006 that he could lead the city through disaster. Residents, many of whom have taken on responsibilities that rightfully belong to city government, are hungry for signs of leadership.
The mayor owes them his best. He owes them a government that is efficient and responsive. He also owes them a government that is transparent. Instead, Mayor Nagin and his staff have a tendency to be secretive.
That must change. Withholding crucial information from the public is disrespectful, breeds distrust among residents and works against recovery.
The Times-Picayne suggests the following items for Mayor Nagin’s “To Do” list:
Increase public safety by hiring, training, and vetting more police officers Improve the city’s plans for redeveloping abandoned houses and demolishing blighted buildings Ensure code enforcement Get major recovery projects under way and put to use $411 million in grant money from the Louisiana Recovery Authority
Transparency with Tax Dollars: Git R Done!
Sunshine Troublemaker of the Week
May 16, 2008
The Lucy Burns Institute instituted the Sunshine Troublemaker of the Week (STOTW) Award in July 2007. This prestigious award goes to people who come under attack for filing open records requests.
This week’s STOTW Award winner is Kathy Barnes, a resident of Albertville, Alabama. Kathy had the audacity to request several records from Marshall County officials, including copies of citations issued by the county under its junk ordinance.
The Open Records blog has the story:
Havoc and panic set in upon the county receiving the request. The county issued a letter to Ms. Barnes saying her reason for asking was “insufficient” although under Alabama’s open records law, a request can only be denied if the motive is deemed to be “purely speculative or from idle curiosity.”
Most likely, when Ms. Barnes asked for information about payroll records for junk ordinance enforcement officers and “bid information for commissioner vehicles”–that’s the vehicles owned by the county and used by the county commissioners who denied the request–she was stepping way, way over that line.
County administrator Nancy Wilson defended their response to Barnes, saying, “We are going to get Ms. Barnes what she wants, but we have to also be aware that there are some things that are not for public access. In order to protect the rights of the rest of the public, we have to be sure it’s OK.”
Copies of junk ordinances? Citations written? Bids on vehicles owned by the county?
Citizens of Marshall County, unite.
Congratulations, Kathy Barnes- you are our weekly open records hero.
To see the 23 previous STOTW winners, go here, and to nominate someone for the award, please go here.
Paul Jacob: Another audit, please
May 16, 2008
Paul Jacob is a veteran transparency advocate and a senior policy advisor at the Sam Adams Alliance. Jacob’s column, Common Sense, highlights a suspicious reaction from Diane Oberquell, a Thurston County commissioner, when she found out Washington state officials were checking on the transparency of local government. From the column:
Last fall, Washington state auditors conducted a government performance audit to see how responsive local officials are to requests for public records.
According to the newspaper The Olympian, this Commissioner Oberquell — I guess it’s a coincidence that her name sorta rhymes with “overkill” — this Oberquell person went “ballistic” when she found out about the audit. Claimed it was an uncalled for “sting” operation.
Hey, if that’s what it was, so be it. Let’s have more of these sting operations.
The irony is that a draft report of the audit has just been released, and it seems Thurston County got an okay assessment. Not the best, not the worst. Middling. So why all the defensiveness?
Hmmm . . . seems mighty suspicious to me. Time for another audit?
Sunshine Review’s inaugural project is to promote awareness about the extent local government websites provide useful, needed information. If you are interested in helping with this project, please go here.
Advocate to Jindal: If you’re gonna go, go all out!
May 15, 2008
Today’s Advocate Editorial weighs in on transparency bills in the Louisiana legislature. It asks Governor Jindal to support HB1100, the broader of the two measures under consideration. It starts out with a carrot…
Jindal’s administration, to its credit, has endorsed the idea of scaling back exclusions for most of those separate agencies, many of which were created after the original state public records law was enacted.
We commend the governor for supporting access to public documents generated by these state agencies.
Then, it picks up a stick…
The apparent rationale for limiting public access to documents in the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and the state Military Department is concern about compromising sensitive security issues such as terrorist threats. But state homeland security officials also deal with matters such as hurricane preparedness, a subject which, especially in post-Katrina Louisiana, should be open to broad public review.
…
We would argue that the present exemptions from public scrutiny for the office of Louisiana’s governor hold Louisiana back, keeping our state at the bottom of national rankings for access to records held by the Governor’s Office.
Sunshine Review Blog to LA policymakers: Let the Sunshine in!
Louisiana government opens door to sunshine
May 14, 2008
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal campaigned on a promise to ease the way for greater government transparency. The LA legislature is currently considering two bills in support of that effort. From the Times-Picayune:
The administration is backing Senate Bill 629 by Sen. Mike Walsworth, R-West Monroe, which could come up for debate in the upper chamber in the coming days. Walsworth’s measure would seal records in the offices of the governor, the inspector general, the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security, the state Military Department, work products related to industrial recruiting by the state Department of Economic Development, and any direct communication between the governor’s office and the affiliated agencies that now enjoy a seal themselves.
House Bill 1100 by Rep. Wayne Waddell, R-Shreveport, differs by narrowing the protection within the governor’s executive office to the governor, the chief of staff and the legal counsel.
I like transparency policy debate centered around the question of “how much” rather than “if”.
Welcome to Sunshine Review
May 12, 2008
Welcome to the official blog of the Sunshine Review wiki.
What kind of content will be covered here?
This blog will contain a collection of news about government transparency, openness and accountability at the state and local level.
Please keep an eye on our RSS feeds as well as our wiki for updates.
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Exposing It
