In this suit testing the enforcement powers in the D.C. Open Meetings Act, Superior Court Judge John Campbell heard argument last Friday (28) on pending motions from both sides for summary judgment (decision without a trial). The hearing was the first time the parties squared off in court.
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Since public access opened over a year ago, FOIA requests for video from Metropolitan Police body-worn cameras (BWC) have numbered just over sixty and redacting those released so far has cost only $25,000.
Those facts, released by the Open Government Coalition in a Sunshine Week briefing at the National Press Club, are far from the alarming estimates provided by the executive branch to the D.C. Council in the heat of the extended camera debate in 2015.
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Celebrating Sunshine Week 2017, the National Press Club Journalism Institute’s Freedom of the Press Committee will join with the D.C. Open Government Coalition to present the sixth annual D.C. Open Government Summit on March 14 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
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Read More… from DC Open Government Summit and Reception at National Press Club
Plans are under way inside D.C. government to change the law in ways likely to disable the Office of Open Government (OOG). The D.C. Open Government Coalition testified February 23 at the annual performance oversight hearing on the Board of Ethics and Government Accountability (BEGA) that includes the OOG.
Proposals in the works at the board could harm the office, according to the Coalition’s government affairs committee chair, attorney Robert Becker. He reported on a text of a bill obtained by the Coalition and under consideration by D.C. officials.
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Read More… from DCOGC: Independence of D.C. Watchdog Office Threatened, Coalition Tells D.C. Council
The District of Columbia, citing the "novelty" of this Open Meetings Act enforcement action, got more time over the holidays for the mayor's Caribbean Community Affairs Commission to figure out its next step in the case. The commission is one of the D.C. mayor's many public advisory bodies, and is alleged to have failed in fulfilling the law's requirements to inform the public in advance about meetings and to furnish a record of each meeting promptly afterwards.
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Analysis of the 2015 data on over 70 D.C. agencies’ responses to requests for public records under the D.C. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) shows troubling trends, according to a new report just released.
In handling about 6,200 new requests, compared to the prior year D.C. agencies granted fewer, rejected more, took longer doing so, and were more often wrong. Continue…
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A D.C. Council committee roundtable chaired by Vincent Orange (D-At Large) on July 13 listened to a crowded hearing room packed with residents angry about illegal construction and weak consumer protection by city regulators in the Department of Consumer & Regulatory Affairs (DCRA).
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At a July 6 hearing of the D.C. Council Committee on Housing and Community Relations, the Coalition opposed a bill to exempt Advisory Neighborhood Commissions from the Freedom of Information Act. Board member LaVita Tuff testified that the bill would perpetuate ANCs' blanket exemption from the Open Meetings Act as well.
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Read More… from D.C. Coalition opposes bill to make ANCs more secretive
The D.C. Open Government Coalition testified July 6 to the D.C. Council opposing legislation to exempt the 41 Advisory Neighborhood Commissions from public records and open meetings laws.
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Read More… from D.C. Coalition Opposes FOIA Exemption for D.C. Neighborhood Commissions
With technical barriers soon to be cleared away, all that remains is working out access policies for the public to get court records online just as easily as at the courthouse.
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