National Freedom of Information Coalition
Protecting Your Right to Open Government

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Chicago lays out next steps in Open Data Plan

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City of Chicago officials released a report Friday laying out a next set of goals for routine publication of data from city agencies.

The first annual City of Chicago Open Data Report resulted from a December 2012 executive order of Mayor Rahm Emanuel that required city agencies to publish data and metadata to a public portal. The information includes civic employee salaries, lobbyist data, budget data and more.

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Editorial: Connecticut should repeal law that weakens FOIA

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During the legislative session that begins Thursday, Connecticut’s General Assembly will consider whether to uphold, repeal, scale back or expand exemptions to the state’s Freedom of Information Act that the Assembly recklessly passed last June.

Let us be abundantly clear: The legislature should repeal the exemptions and restore the Freedom of Information Act to its original, best-in-the-nation form, which was passed unanimously by the legislature and signed into law by Gov. Ella T. Grasso in 1975.

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Los Angeles Doubles Down on Open Government with Chief Innovation Officer Hire

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Continuing a recent trend of embracing innovation and open government, Los Angeles shored up its reputation even more by appointing the city’s first Chief Innovation Officer this week. Peter Marx, appointed by Mayor Eric Garcetti, will be tasked with making over the city’s website and mobile app. He will also represent a key cog in the wheel of open government by overseeing the release of the data collected by city agencies.

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Open data gurus share best practices

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In honor of Data Innovation Day the city of Philadelphia released a guidebook to provide advice and information to city departments and agencies on releasing open data. The city’s Open Data Guidebook offers suggestions on reviewing data for completeness and accuracy, adding metadata components and terms of use as well as staging the data and using application programming interfaces.

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Local Watchdog Group Suing City Attorney

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A San Diego watchdog group is suing the city attorney, saying he is using his personal email account to do the city's business.

San Diegans for Open Government is accusing Jan Goldsmith of hiding behind his private email account so he will not have to turn over certain emails. Attorney Cory Briggs is suing Goldsmith on behalf of SDOG, or San Diegans for Open Government.

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Open Records on Pension Benefits

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It always rankles when someone elected to public office tells the people who put him there that they don't really need to know something about government.

It further rankles when people asking for information are characterized as "nosy."

But that is exactly what state Rep. Brent Yonts, D-Greenville, said last week as he explained to reporter John Cheves his plan for killing a bill that would provide more transparency about our deeply troubled state retirement system.

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NR: Canadian company announces Community plaftorm for open data

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Civic Dynamics has announced its formation and unveiled its Civic Dynamics Platform (CDP), the first truly dynamic, open-data platform for local governments. CDP's underlying open-source software and supporting systems enable municipalities to publish open government data in a dynamic format that allows citizens to easily view, mix, match and analyze it. The company is a partnership with two U.S. companies, Structured Dynamics, open data and semantic technology experts, and Buzzr, a Drupal-based hosted content management platform for building affordable yet robust websites.

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Open Government Caucus Launches its Agenda

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The bipartisan Open Government Caucus (OGC), led by a Seattle Democrat and an East Wenatchee Republican, hit the ground running at its first meeting this week. The caucus is co-chaired by Rep. Gerry Pollet, the Democrat, and Rep. Brad Hawkins, the Republican. They want to breathe new life into the work toward transparency and accountability on the part of elected officials and government staff.

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OpEd: State’s $62 billion unfunded liability demands transparency

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Michigan is facing a looming problem that is already affecting our schools and all levels of state government. This problem is our state’s unfunded accrued liability (UAL), also known as “legacy costs.” These costs are the difference between the retirement benefits promised to or earned by public employees and the amount of funds available to provide them.

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