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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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 work by covering local, state, and congressional political news. This week I have highlights from New Mexico, Georgia and Illinois.New Mexico FBIHOP has been live blogging the New Mexican legislative session. This year is a short 30 day session covering mostly budgetary issues. Matt is doing a great job keeping on top of what is going on, along with the live streaming action on New Mexico Independent this legislative session will be well accounted for. In the coming weeks we will be keeping track of the up and coming transparency initiatives in the state, so stay tuned.
Peach Pundit has a post about a former candidate for Governor’s PAC, which hasn’t filed a campaign report in a while, but had a great deal of money left over. The blogger wondered if they had to continue to file if they had any left over funds. Apparently they do not have to disclosure left over funds and can do whatever they wants with it.
Illinois’ The Quincy Pundit has a post about strange practices in the Quincy City Hall. The City Attorney sent out a letter to people in the community, on official letterhead, basically asking them to not vote for a particular candidate for Mayor because that candidate would fire him. Well, isn’t that special.
I also wanted to point out this awesome article by MediaShift highlighting great work by 3 local bloggers from around the country. I think this quote by blogger Chuck Welch sums up the local political bloggersphere perfectly.
“I think there are cases now where city council or city staff might be more cognizant that just because the newspaper reporter is not in the room it doesn’t mean the community is not going to learn about whatever it is they are doing.”
It is widely accepted that citizen journalists doesn’t replace investigative journalists, however, that doesn’t discount how important they are to keep track of local government. With the recent court decision transparency is more important than ever we need people willing to dig through disclosure data and an active political blogosphere is where we look to find them.
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Transparency Growing Pains In DeKalb, Illinois
I’m happy to have Lynn Fazekas from Illinois’ City Barbs guest blog today. City Barbs is a hyper local blog that covers issues that affect DeKalb, Illinois. The story of DeKalb struggle for transparency is not exclusive to DeKalb but is happening in small towns across the country. The lack of publicly available information prohibits people from actually being able to hold elected officials accountable and lets corruption reign free.
By Lynn Fazekas
City BarbsEvents following Victor Wogen’s controversial election to the DeKalb (Illinois) City Council prompted a citizens’ group to push for online access to more types of public information.
When Wogen was elected DeKalb’s Third Warders and others, including myself, wrote letters to the editor to call for the alderman-elect (Wogen) not to be seated in May. Citizens came to City Council meetings, some wearing t-shirts and buttons with “Wogen Resign” and “The Barbed Liar” on them (barbed wire was invented in DeKalb) to demand his resignation and to ask other Council members to denounce his behavior. Of course we blogged as well. Nothing much came of these activities but at least we’d officially registered our displeasure — or so we thought at first. Upon reading Council meeting minutes, we realized the City Clerk* had “sanitized” some of the citizens’ statements during these meetings. Comments in support of the new alderman were duly recorded, but remarks unflattering to him were summarized vaguely; e.g., “So-and-so commented on the Third Ward election.” Thus began another round of letters to the editor, neighborhood meetings, appointments with the mayor and clerk, and the birth of the Wogen Watch blog. By mid-summer the focus was more on how to combat the bias in meeting minutes than on the Wogen himself.
Expanded public access to records besides the meeting minutes seemed reasonable to request. In August nine of us – unnamed then but now known as DeKalb Citizens for Transparency – sent a letter asking for certain documents to be placed online on a regular basis. The request was well-received by the Council; promises were made and a deadline set for the changes.
On a personal note, I remember feeling relief that we could channel our energies into a positive, productive direction.
Two years later, the improved access helped lead to the discovery that Alderman Wogen has been awarded no-bid contracts under the radar during his term of office.
None of the public access improvements were more important than the online posting of the “agenda packet,” the collections of documents such as memos, preliminary drawings, surveys, etc., which accompany agendas and help City Council members, media, and other interested persons prepare for meetings. The agenda packet also includes the city’s check register once per month. It was the tracking of expenditures made possible by inclusion of the check register, along with the Illinois Secretary of State’s Corporate/LLC online database, which confirmed Victor Wogen’s ownership of Masonry Works, LLC and his additional city income of nearly $53,000 in 2008 for post-demolition repair work in downtown DeKalb.
Access to state records have also led to the discoveries that Wogen did not pay prevailing wages for the downtown jobs, that he is being pursued for unpaid payroll taxes, and that he owes the Illinois Tollway thousands in unpaid tolls and fines.
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24 Days Of Local Sunlight – Day 24
24 days just isn’t enough. I can write a blogpost every day for a whole year about all the great bloggers across the country keeping an eye on government.So today I am thanking all local political bloggers who keep writing day in and day out.
The decline in local newspapers and investigative journalism left a gap that local bloggers are helping to fill. Even though investigative journalism is still essential, it is good to know that there are hundreds of people willing to keep tabs on what power is doing.
As Sunlight starts to move into the states these bloggers are the leaders on the ground who will bring their communities and states into the sun.
So thank you local bloggers and transparency advocates! I hope everyone has a very happy and healthy New Year!
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24 Days Of Local Sunlight – Day 23
Today I want to give a shout out Bacon’s Rebellion.The blog is dedicated to covering Virginia; especially infastructure, transportation and taxes. Bacon’s Rebellion has a few contributors but the person I have highlighted the most is James Bacon.
I like the post about a fellow transparency advocate retiring. The post about the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority lobbying for more state money with state money; is a great example of how some potential conflicts of interest can fall through the cracks. Even if using public money to lobby for more public money isn’t illegal it should be questioned and blogs are the perfect place for that kind of digging.
Bacon’s Rebellion’s posts are always thoughtful and focused on how best to deal with the nuts and bolts that make up Virginia.
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24 Days Of Local Sunlight – Day 22
Today I want to give a shout out to Washington state’s Olympia Time.Olympia Time is a local blog written by Emmett O’Connell. Emmett focuses on Thurston County, WA-03 and other state level issues. I really like this blog because of the special focus he puts on local government using the internet to better communicate with citizens. He uses the blog to give suggestions for how government should engage citizens. For example, this post that explains why there should be online resources that give people the ability to participate in public hearings. Emmett also participated in a group to make Thurston County’s Web site better.
I love this blog’s emphasis on engaging with government using internet tools and asking local government to think outside the box to engage citizens. His tag ClueTrain pretty much says it all.
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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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24 Days Of Local Sunlight – Day 18
Today I am giving a high five to Minnesota’s Bluestem Prairie.Written by Sally Jo Sorenson, she keeps track of what is going on in Minnesota. What attracted me to Bluestem in the first place was the focus on keeping track of Rep. Tim Walz from MN first district. Sally did a great job of looking into his record and the announcements that would come out of his office. Now the blog has evolved to focus on Minnesota in general and lately they have been doing great research on stimulus spending in Minnesota.
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24 Days Of Local Sunlight – Day 17
Today I want to send some appreciation over to New Mexico’s FBIHOP.Written by Matt Reichbach, FBIHOP keeps track of all news New Mexico related. Matt does a great job keeping on top of the issues of the day and relating them back to New Mexico. He also does some digging on his own from looking at earmarks to sharing ways to get muckraking resources. One of my favorite posts was this one about how the New Mexico State Legislature is set up to exclude citizen participation. When a system makes it harder for people, who are not employed full time as lobbyists, to have influence then how can regular people make an impact?
One way is to utilize the internet to expand your voice. Matt has definite beliefs and writes about them day in and day out and spends time getting himself heard. The great thing about the internet is that it makes room for regular people to influence government in their free time.
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24 Days Of Local Sunlight – Day 16
Today I would like give a shout out to Louisiana’s Between the Lines.Between the Lines is written by Jeffrey Sadow, who is a political science professor Louisiana State University. He also writes Louisiana Legislature Log which keeps track of what is happening in Baton Rouge. Jeff does a great job keeping track of ethics news from around Louisiana. The posts are thoughtful and he writes about things with a practical lens. For example, this post about disclosure requirements for contributions from political appointees or this post questioning earmark reforms and offering new solutions.
I am definitely glad to read the perspective of a political science professor on local transparency issues.
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24 Days Of Local Sunlight – Day 12, 13, 14 and 15
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.
