Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission hearing officer Lisa Siegel was right in calling out UConn trustees and top officials for a closed-door meeting last year to discuss the university's proposed $1.3 billion budget.
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Read More… from Editorial: UConn has no business keeping budget discussions secret
The Las Vegas Police Managers and Supervisors Association struck a blow for public union transparency Tuesday, allowing the public to attend contract negotiations for the first time. But the public didn't show up.
Besides the representatives on either side of the table at Metro headquarters on Martin Luther King Boulevard, there were only a few spectators, mostly reporters. And people attending the meeting would have had difficulty following the proceedings; talks covered esoteric subjects only insiders would understand.
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Read More… from Las Vegas police union contract discussions opened to the public
A measure aimed at keeping more information about public employees' pay out of the public eye won approval from a key Virginia Senate panel Tuesday, but the group narrowed the scope of legislation that could have kept secret all information about chemicals used in fracking.
The Senate General Laws Committee's Freedom of Information subcommittee asked for more study of legislation that would give two-thirds of Virginia counties and more than half of its cities twice as much time to respond to FOIA requests.
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Read More… from Virginia bill advances to keep more officials’ salaries secret
Should we charge a toll when a Manchester resident wants to walk into City Hall?
Manchester Rep. Patrick Long wants to increase the cost of open government by allowing public officials to charge people directly for doing their jobs.
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Read More… from Editorial: At what price? Increasing cost of open government in New Hampshire
Seeking to strengthen the state’s public records law to provide increased public access to government information, Massachusetts Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr has filed a number of amendments to the public records legislation released last week by the Senate Committee on Ways and Means.
The bill is expected to be taken up in the Senate formal session on Feb. 4.
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Read More… from Massachusetts senator seeks to strengthen public records law
Twenty Colorado nonprofits that spend public dollars to serve people with disabilities should be required like government agencies to provide detailed financial records and other information on request, parents and advocates told state lawmakers Monday.
“We’re not asking for more money from the state to care for our son,” said Darlene Beals, mother of 19-year-old Alan, who has Down Syndrome. “We’re asking for tools to check on community-centered boards for services already approved.”
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Public meeting agendas in Rhode Island are “often vague, lacking critical information, and at times entirely unhelpful” to residents attempting to participate in their government, a new report by the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island has found.
In reviewing just one week of public meeting agendas, the ACLU of RI discovered numerous violations of a critical portion of the state’s Open Meetings Act (OMA), and recommended that the law be strengthened in order to adequately protect the public’s right to know.
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Read More… from ACLU of Rhode Island report finds numerous violations of Open Meetings Act
Delaware is redoubling its open data efforts, Gov. Jack Markell has announced. Through the signing of Executive Order 57, the governor mandated the creation of a Data Governance Council that will help executive branch agencies publish their data on the state’s open data portal.
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Read More… from Data Governance Council to revamp Delaware’s open data efforts
Calling the agency “woefully out of compliance” with the District’s Freedom of Information Act, the DC Office of Open Government issued an opinion Friday finding the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) failed to post records of building permits required to be available free online. Instead, according to the opinion, the agency disobeyed the law two ways, first by requiring an ANC Commissioner asking for a copy of a permit file to submit a FOIA request, then sending it to be processed by a private copy service that could charge its own fees.
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It is ironic that the University of Colorado prepared a detailed report of how Littleton Public Schools could make its district safer after a school shooting but the very same university won't release its own report of how it handled James Holmes when he was a graduate student.
Holmes was a student until a few weeks before his deadly attack on a theater in Aurora in July 2012. After the massacre, the university retained Robert Miller, a former U.S. attorney in Colorado, to conduct an independent review of how the university handled Holmes.
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Read More… from Editorial: CU should stop hiding Aurora theater shooting report
