Making Government Transparent and Accountable
The Sunlight Foundation uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable. Underlying all of our efforts is a fundamental belief that increased transparency will improve the public's confidence in government
The Sunlight Foundation Blog
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24 Days Of Local Sunlight – Day 19, 20 and 21
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.
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Local Sunlight
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 Missouri, Maryland, Louisiana, Arizona, and MinnesotaIn Missouri, The Turner Report has a post about an earmark the Center for Public Integrity reported on obtained by Rep. Roy Blunt. Blunt got a 4 million earmark for EaglePicher a client of his former chief of staff Gregg Hartley. Clearly there is some revolving door can’t be stopped.
In Maryland, Brian Griffiths has a post about the earmarks Sen. Mikulski has been getting for her top campaign contributors. She has gotten $42.1 million total for three companies Northrop Grumman, Thales Communications, and L-3 Communications who also have been giving her a generous campaign contributions over the years.
In Louisiana, We Could Be Famous has a post about Louisiana’s Ethics Review Board trying to dodge a disclosure requirement. Government organizations who spend more than $10,000 a year have to file financial disclosure forms. However, the Ethics Review Board requested an exemption to disclosing and was granted the request. If the ethics board gets a pass I wonder what other agencies get one too?
AZ Central has a post about the city of Surprise, Arizona’s proposals to build public trust had a few financial mishaps recently and so the city decided to clean up its image. They want to hire an outside auditor to review the books; they will be creating a searchable Web site of city spending. The interesting part of the spending Web site will be that they will update the site when the checks are written not later. I look forward to seeing the site.
Bluestem Prairie goes looking for stimulus spending. There has been a good deal of research into what the problems of tracking the money given to states has been. There is apparently no one state or federal agency that maintains a comprehensive public list of projects and no one central clearing house for everything. Recovery spending and its affects are hard to determine. This makes judging Recovery’s affectiveness impossible.
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Local Spotlight
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 currentOn 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
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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 s**t and I wouldn’t p**s 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. KalbNow 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.
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Local Sunlight
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 Arizona, Massachusetts, Mississippi, and Nevada.
In Arizona, AZCentral reports on how for the first time ever citizens will get to choose whether their state representatives get a pay raise or not.
In Massachusetts, Hub Politics reports about state senate republicans’ new blog.
In Mississippi, Alaskan Jambalaya has a post about Hank Paulson lobbying efforts before he became Secretary of the Treasury.
In Nevada, Vote Gibbons Out is asking people to dig into the state level campaign finance reports. Apparently they are difficult to decipher them when they are hand written. I wonder if the FEC has that problem with Senate campaign finance reports since the Senate is not required to file electronically. Indecipherable election information should become a thing of the past. www.Pass223.com
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Dear Public: Arizona needs your help with the budget!
As reported by Government Technology:
Arizona just launched a new Web site, Arizona’s Openness and Saving Strategies Project. From the site:
These are tight times, and Arizona’s budget is no exception. That’s why we need to find every good idea we can, and put those ideas to work to help state government agencies save money. This site contains news about Arizona’s budget, as well as examples of savings strategies that have already been implemented in Arizona and are working now. State employees can also use this site to find cost-saving measures in use at other agencies. Just as importantly, you will find ways to Submit Your Own Ideas to help our state cut back even further.
This new project opens up the buget process so state agencies can collaborate with each other and citizens can share their ideas for saving money with officals. It also has budget related news and gives information on how the state budget is produced.
With this project Arizona is really exploring new ways to deal with its budget deficit. Not to mention that inviting the community at large to participate in fixing their state financial problems empowers citizens to really invest in their state and not just hope politicians will fix it. I wish Congress would think about more ways like this to involve the wisdom of the masses to help solve problems. It would be very democratic of them.
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Local Sunlight
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 Oregon, Nebraska, and Arizona.
Oregon Earmark’s Blog points to the Favor Factory and then highlights earmarks that the Oregon congressional delegation received. He quips “While I wear and like New Balance shoes, not sure they need the $2.4 Million earmark for cold weather equipment.”
New Nebraska has an interesting post about how the influence of lobbying has changed from term limits. Apparently requiring a new herd of legislators to come in every few terms causes lobbying to be harder because they have to start from scratch with new lawmakers. It will be interesting to see how the lobbying industry evolves in Nebraska to deal with this.
In Arizona, Expresso Pundit posts about earmarking and how it bypasses the checks and balances that the founding fathers put in place. He also examines some earmarking that Arizona legislators are doing.
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Local Sunlight
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 convering local, state, and Congressional political news. This week I have highlights from Arizona, Indiana, Maine, Nebraska, and South Dakota.
In Arizona, Expresso Pundit posted a very interesting letter from the Arizona state legislature. It is an invitation to a legislative workshop. This workshop discusses; how bills are drafted and moved through the legislature, and also will demo the Arizona Legislative Information System, the Request to Speak Program (this link will take you to a manual about the program), and how to use the legislative website.Advance Indiana goes into some depth about how the city council of Lake Station, IN wants to ban private recordings of their meetings. The complaint, people are playing the recordings at local area bars to entertain customers.
Spud1 at Turn Main Blue takes this opportunity to challenge some opinions Sen. Collins posted on her new blog. It is great that Sen. Collins has joined the growing number of elected officials’ blogging their opinion and giving constituents a chance to respond.
I’ve been meaning to highlight Nebraska’s Smith Watch. Every week, they go through the actions of the House and highlight what Rep. Adrian Smith did. For instance, from 9/10 to 9/14 Rep. Smith did not submit or make floor statements but he did add his name to resolution H.Res.641, as a cosponsor.
In South Dakota, Lowell from Badlands Blue highlights Tim Johnson’s new We bsite. There is one thing missing Sen. Johnson, a daily schedule! Let you constituents know who you’re meeting with every day, Punch the Clock.
That’s all I have this week. Keep up the good work!
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Local Sunlight
Keeping track of congressional information starts at the local level, and blogs do a great job of informing people about what is happening in their own backyard. I have been reading local blogs for quite a while and have been very impressed with the coverage on local ethics issues and congressional information. So I would like to highlight every week some blogs that do a great job covering issues that deal with transparency, ethics, and corruption.
In
Georgia Porkbusters gave a rundown of who in the
New York Rochester Turning is reporting that the New York State Ethics Commission recently released an advisory opinion on the use of state aircraft for political purposes.
In
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First Legislator Ousted for Campaign Finance Violations Leaves Office:
The first lawmaker in the nation to be ousted for violating campaign finance laws left his position on the Arizona state Legislature on Monday. Rep. David Smith violated the strict campaign finance laws in Arizona by spending 17 percent more than the allowed amount. Smith vowed that he would return to the Legislature.
