Sunshine Week 2009

The following are just a few of the stories that appeared online during Sunshine Week 2009 (March 22 - 28). For more stories about the Massachusetts Campaign for Open Government’s recognition awards ceremony that took place at the State House during Sunshine Week, please go to the Common Cause Massachusetts news feed page.

Lines Drawn In Battle To Open Workings Of Government

March 15, 2009, The Republican, Jack Flynn

Second of a two part series about government reform. This part focuses on proposed changes to the open meeting and public records law pending in the legislature. The first part, “Winds of reform could chill Statehouse scandals”, by Dan Ring, focuses on ethics reform.

Open Government According To The Founding Fathers?

March 16, 2009, The Concord Magazine blog, Rich Stevenson

This is a reprint of a piece about the author’s problems with obtaining public records under the open meeting. He made his request in April, 2008, and his appeal to the State was still pending as of March 2009. Who says there are no problems with the current Public Records Law?

Newton To Be Honored For Web Accessibility

March 16, 2009, The Daily News Tribune

Article about the Massachusetts Campaign for Open Government’s recognition of almost 120 cities and towns for posting key public records online.

Virtual Town Hall Lauded For Openness

March 17, 2009, The Milford Daily News, Joyce Kelly

Franklin receives recognition for website from Common Cause Massachusetts for third year in a row.

OUR VIEW: Let The Light In

March 17, 2009, South Coast Today, Editorial

Piece about the importance of the local newspaper in obtaining access to local government information.

Electronic Records Upset The Boat Of Public Access

March 17, 2009, The Concord Magazine Blog

Calls for updating policies and procedures to address electronic record retention issues.

Sunshine Week: Local Towns Fare Well On Superintendent E-mail Requests

March 19, 2009, The Milford Daily News, John Hilliard

“As part of Sunshine Week, the Daily News requested copies of e-mails sent between 13 area school superintendents and the heads of their respective school committees during March 2008.” Results are contained in the article.

Town of Easton Honored For Government Openness On Its Website

March 19, 2009, The Enterprise

Easton received recognition from the Massachusetts Campaign for Open Government, Common Cause Massachusetts for its use of its website. Article also mentions other towns that failed to receive recognition.

Counsel Offers Opinion In Flap Over Westport Superintendent's Contract

March 19, 2009, The New Bedford Standard Times (reprinted in the AARP Bulletin Today)

Local counsel says no violation of open meeting law occurred in how the school committee handled the retiring school superintendent’s contract.

Town Web Site Really Clicks

March 19, 2009, The Westford Eagle, Stephen Vittorioso

Article about how the town of Westford uses its website to provide information to its citizens.

Nonprofit Honors Boxborough Website, But Not Acton's

March 23, 2009, The Beacon

Another article about the Massachusetts Campaign for Open Government, Common Cause Massachusetts annual recognition awards to local websites for posting key public records online.

Andover, Methuen, and Orleans All Have Video On Demand.

I have discovered three more Massachusetts communities that post videos of public meetings online. The city of Methuen provides live webcasts and on-demand broadcasts of various local government meetings, including city council meetings, school committee meetings, zoning board of appeals meetings, and community development committee meetings. The town of Orleans has videos of the meetings of at least ten different town committees and boards available for downloading on its website. Many of the videos date back as far back as July 2008. Finally, the town of Andover's community access channel provides live webcasts of local government meetings and video downloads of the meetings of at least five local government boards and committees, as well as League of Women Voters meetings. The videos date back to about a year ago.

Unfortunately, none of the on demand videos of all three of these communities allow the viewer to jump ahead to a particular spot on the agenda for the meeting, although the Orleans videos allow the viewer to skip around on the video to different spots. In any event, the citizens of Methuen, Andover, and Orleans now have greater access to information about local government meetings.

Another Video On Demand Community

The town of Dennis, Massachusetts, is another community that is posting downloadable videos of meetings of some of its boards and committees on its website. The boards and committees include the Board of Selectmen, the Finance Committee, the Board of Health, and the Conservation Commission. Dennis has about 14,000 residents. Thank you to Steve Buss, the IT Director in Dennis for letting me know about this feature. And good for Dennis, Massachusetts.

What's New In Municipal Websites... Northampton, Ma.

As Common Cause Massachusetts finishes up on its third annual review of city and town websites, we have been noticing and hearing about some interesting things some municipalities are doing to promote civic engagement and to provide greater access to local government information. For example, the Mayor of Northampton, MA, Mayor Clare Higgins, has posted her budget presentation to the City Council Finance Committee on line. The presentation describes a $6 million deficit the city faces for the next fiscal year. It also asks residents to provide suggestions for budget savings. As the Mayor’s office receives suggestions from the public, they post them on the website on pages labeled “The City Speaks” and “More Citizen Ideas.”

As an aide to the Mayor described it to Common Cause Massachusetts, “We are very proud of this feature, and extremely pleased with the positive, interactive response we are getting from the public... It’s been a terrific way to share information and answer questions that are on the minds of lots of taxpayers in these challenging days.”

Maybe this is something other municipalities will want to consider as their budget process moves forward.

Video on Demand

The Massachusetts Campaign for Open Government currently is doing its annual review of municipal websites. I have been helping out and have noticed that more and more communities have video on demand features either on their websites or on the website of the local community television station. In previous posts I have talked about Franklin’s and Barnstable’s video on demand features. Here are a few more communities that provide this service to the public:

Boston
(Okay, so the Boston City Council has gotten into some trouble in the past with the Open Meeting Law… but still ahead of the majority of communities with this feature.)

Chatham
(Has videos meetings posted from the past two years.)

Easthampton

Fitchburg
(Fitchburg Access TV posts online video of a lot of events around the city.)

Framingham

Haverhill
(Last two meeting of City Council on community television.)

Newton
(Okay, Newton has audio of Alderman meetings, not videos…. but it’s a start.)

Video on demand is a very cool feature, especially in these busy times, that allows citizens to watch public meetings at whatever time is convenient to them, without them having to remember to set the video, dvd recorder, or TiVo. It is another example of how the latest technology that can make access to local government information easier. Hopefully, more communities will embrace it.

A Really New Idea in Open Government

I posted yesterday about the town of Barnstable providing videos of meetings of its board and committees online so the public can watch them at their leisure. I used to live near Alexandria, Virginia, one of my favorite places on earth. It does Barnstable one better in regard to its City Council and Planning Board meetings. Not only can you download or watch videos of meetings from the city’s website, you also can jump ahead in the video to items in the meeting docket (agenda). I read about this kind of software a while ago, but had not seen it in action until I checked out the City of Alexandria’s website. (According to the website for Granicus, Inc, it provides "meeting solutions" to Alexandria, VA, so presumably the downloadable videos are utilizing Granicus's software.) I am not aware of any community in Massachusetts using this technology and there are none listed on the Granicus website. (Isn't Massachusetts supposed to be a center of technological development? Shouldn't we be users too?)

Circumventing Open Government in Salem

According to the Salem News, Governor Patrick met in a closed meeting with the Salem Mayor, members of the Salem City Council and School Committee, and other municipal officers on Wednesday. The purpose of the meeting was for the Governor to hear the concerns of the local officials and to discuss the Governor’s proposed budget cuts and the future outlook. Similar meetings were held in Fall River, New Bedford, and Quincy. Apparently, the Governor only invited a minority of the Council and the School Committee to the meeting in an attempt to avoid having to comply with the Open Meeting Law.

This story is troubling. First, it appears that the Governor or his staff thought about the Open Meeting Law because they made an attempt to circumvent it by only inviting a minority of each elected board. In other words, this was not simply an example of a government official being clueless; it is an example of a government official wanting to keep the public in the dark. Second, it appears from the editorial that a majority of the City Council attended anyway. So, even if only inviting a minority of the Council was a legitimate way to circumvent the Open Meeting Law, it failed in its implementation. Finally, even if only a minority of the Council members attended the meeting, unless they were instructed not to communicate in any way to the absent members about what took place at the meeting and they complied with this instruction, this situation is not any different from the situation in which council members engage in serial phone calls or meetings to discuss a topic that will come before them. And we know how that turned out for the Boston City Council.

Hopefully, the Salem News will pursue this issue.

{Cross-posted at the Massachusetts Campaign for Open Government Blog.)