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 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 5/8/09
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 Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nevada, and New Hampshire.
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Local Sunlight 4/30/09
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 Alabama, Florida, Hawaii, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Texas.
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Kentucky Tweets
Kentucky is using twitter to share election day information to voters.
So if you’re voting in Kentucky follow the assistant Secretary of State at twitter.com/KYTrey for the latest in election day news.
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Kentucky Needs Your Help!
Government Technology reports that Kentucky just launched a draft of its E-Transparency Web site and is asking citizens to comment on it. The Web site will be fully operational by January 1, 2009 and will offer all kinds of information related to state spending, from a government spending database to a game that will allow citizens to see if they can balance the budget. So go check out the site and submit your feedback! They are collecting comments until October 17th.
A government body giving an opportunity to citizens to have an influence over a government Web site is a rare occurrence. This will hopefully create a site that is not only informative but also user friendly.
So kudos Kentucky! I can’t wait to see the final product.
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Local Sunlight
This week I have highlights from Alabama, Kentucky, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Oregon.
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Local Sunlight
This week I have highlights from
Oregon’s Earmark Blog posts a CRS report about the Executive Order restricting state agencies from considering earmarks not found in the historical texts of bills. Another example of how useful and informative CRS reports are.
S.D. Watch posted a press release from
South Texas Chisme posted about how the
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KentuckyPolitics.org highlights the Kentucky Senate passing legislation that would require Section 527 groups to disclose their contributions.
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Local Sunlight
This week I have highlights from In
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Local Sunlight
This week I have highlights from Georgia, Missouri’s Turner Report, highlights state Senator Kevin Engler (Farmington) bill that would ban public officials from accepting meals, beverages, tickets to sporting events, and other forms of entertainment from lobbyists. This is a big lobbying reform bill, and Local Sunlight will be keeping tabs on its progress.
Right Michigan has an interview with State Representative Brian Cally (
Anything else you’d like to discuss or address with the bloggers at Right Michigan
Open government is good government. Perhaps the biggest weakness in state government today is that much of the decision making process is not open to public scrutiny. Take the budget debate for example. Many of the details on line item spending are kept secret, even from the legislature who is charged with approval of the budgets. I’ll bet the budget would be balanced without tax increases if every single line item of state government spending was published on www.michigan.gov.
Kudos to Rep. Cally for being open to the bloggers and good government.
Bloggers love/hate earmarks. My travels through the blogosphere have led me to find a lot of attention given to earmarks. So in order to keep Local Sunlight by being swallowed by earmark highlights I am introducing Earmark Corner. Gather the kids around the fire and lets see some earmarking from
Over in
New Mexico FBIHOP’s LP highlights Sen. Pete Domenici’s 25 billions “gift” to nuclear power companies in the omnibus energy bill.
That’s all I have for this week. Thanks local bloggers. Keep the Sunlight shining!
