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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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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Jersey’s Fresh Opportunity
Matt Fretz writes Blog the Fifth, which covers New Jersey’s 5th district and Representative Scott Garrett. Matt has been a vocal supporter of transparency efforts around the state and in Congress; as well as doing his part to keep Rep. Garrett accountable. With the contested race for governor over and Chris Christie the winner, Matt shares what transparency measures New Jersey needs to take to battle the culture of corruption that has over taken the state.
By Matt Fretz
Blog the FifthPeople have different reasons to be passionate about transparency; mine is accountability to the taxpayer. To me when elected officials let us know what they are spending our money on then we can keep them accountable and government becomes better. Regardless of whether one is pleased or disgusted with the outcome, the Governor’s race here in New Jersey highlighted just how far transparency has to go.
Chris Christie’s win is rooted in the 130 corruption convictions he rode to victory, which were products of a closed government that encouraged no bid contracts, no show jobs, grants for favors, as well as every form of patronage you can imagine and some you wouldn’t believe were true. Books have been written about our culture of corruption, and the core of it all is the overall lack of transparency. Politicians and decision makers have largely been able to operate out of the public and press’s purview for longer than anyone can remember.
Then Christie showed up and started arresting people.
It’s a sad statement on our state’s government that a subpoena was the only way taxpayers could find out what was going on. Despite assertions it was largely a partisan exercise to bolster his own career; it was not as though Christie didn’t get a conviction on every person he charged, Democrat and Republican.
In his acceptance speech, Christie said he is open to new ways to fix our broken state, here’s mine: Open it up.
Already paying the most in taxes, and unlikely to support more, the people of New Jersey are going to have to see cuts and reorganization on a massive scale in order to close a projected deficit equal to roughly 25% of the State budget. It has been proven that governments can find savings when they open the suggestion box to the employees. Residents of New Jersey should also have a chance to look at how our money is spent and voice their suggestions on cuts.
In the effort to include residents in a meaningful way, New Jersey’s Web sites are in desperate need of an upgrade. The sites most needed to track expenses, campaign donations, and legislation almost seem purposely counter intuitive at times, or at the very least cumbersome. Some basic intuition would go a long way, and would provide a golden opportunity for Christie to win some support from the 51% of the population who didn’t vote for him.
Another step would be to eliminate the loophole allowing for pretty much every contract to be awarded in a no bid fashion, or at the very least institute a waiting period between announcement of intention to award the contract and actually awarding it. This would give journalists and citizens a chance to see if there’s any funny business going on. Too often it’s only after the contract is awarded that people realize how much money the the contract winner has contributed, whether directly or indirectly.
Granted, Christie had some questionable actions of his own during his tenure, but never before has a Governor come in with such a strong track record that voters actually expect him to clean up the state. At the very least, one has to be optimistic he may actually get there. The best way for him to start the process is with a little sunshine.
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Texas Has A Watchdog
The state level is a mix and match of some openness and an incredible amount of opacity. That is why groups like Texas Watchdog are worth their weight in gold. According to their site they are “a news Web site and training center that scrutinizes the actions of government agencies, bureaucracies and politicians in Texas. It is an independent, nonpartisan entity founded on the belief that our American democracy depends on transparency in government.” They have been doing excellent work bringing Texas into the light and keeping their elected officials accountable. This is why we welcome Jennifer Peebles to share her experience advocating for transparency in Texas. – Nisha Thompson
By JENNIFER PEEBLES
With 254 counties, 1,200 school districts and a population of about 24 million, the commercials are right: Texas really is like a whole other country.It’s also a country where you have no legal right to know who has applied to be your kid’s next school superintendent, where public officials think open meetings laws trample their free speech rights, and where state legislators keep paper records of who is snooping in their ethics forms.
As the deputy editor for Texas Watchdog, a Houston-based nonprofit news site that launched about a year ago, I advocate for government transparency and try to help average folks who are trying to get government information. We request a lot of records for our own investigative reports as well as just to upload to the Web so that journalists, citizen-journalists and just plain citizens can access them more easily.
(Continue reading…)
