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3rd Carnival of Open Records
The best posts from the FOIA-sphere
What do you get when you have a fox guarding the hen-house in Washington State, a FOIA court victory in Illinois, and a new public records-wiki project? Why, this week's Carnival of Open Records, of course!
Herewith the third weekly recap of the best from the FOIA/open records blogosophere. Next week’s edition will be hosted by Dani K at PassOpenRecords.org.
If you're interested in hosting an edition of the Carnival of Open Records, let the good people at WikiFOIA know. I believe that there's still a slot open for two weeks from now.
Speaking of our friends in Pennsylvania, PassOpenRecords.org has launched the "first-ever PA open records challenge." They're asking participants to try to obtain documents like local officials' contracts or legal spending, and are offering newspaper subscriptions to the winners. They're even offering a special worksheet (MS Word format) to assist contestants in the process.
In Colorado, sheriffs' unions are being told that they cannot use the government payroll system to withdraw funds automatically from the public treasury. Face the State has more, as well as an interesting document from one of the unions.
Everyone may have thought that Darth Vader was dead--or at least had been absorbed into The Force--but the people in Washington State have sighted him thanks to a new appointment by their governor. Governor Gregoire stunned everyone by selecting Seattle City Attorney Tom Carr to chair the state's Sunshine Committee, the group that reviews open records applications and challenges. According to the Open-Government Blog, Carr isn't such a good choice because, among other things he's been instrumental in keeping certain public documents on Seattle policemen under wraps, documents that could demonstrate quite a bit of police misconduct. SVC Alumnus at NW Bloggers has more on Carr and his appointment.
Closer to home for the Sam Adams folks, The FOI Advocate this week reports a huge victory for open records supporters. Illinois's 4th District Appellate Court has ruled that public employees contracts are subject to open records requests even if they're contained within individual personnel files. Illustrating how important newspapers are in the fight to get stronger open records laws, this case was brought by the Anna Gazette Democrat.
Where they like to "Live Free or Die" (in New Hampshire) GilfordGrok has a great piece on the Gilford School Board's penchant for signing contracts without the required approval process. He writes a great take-by-take, showing how he went through the records and asked the board for more information...and got it. Still, not all is well as there's apparently some disagreement on whether the budget committee should discuss pending contracts before the money is committed.
That's it for now. Be sure to catch the 4th Carnival of Open Records next week at PassOpenRecords.org!
