York County's Board of Supervisors is considering changing how it applies the state's Freedom of Information Act, including increasing fees for copies of the county's zoning ordinance and Yorktown design guidelines.
FOIA gives residents access to public records and will be discussed during the board's work session at 6 p.m. Tuesday at York Hall, according to board's agenda.
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Some or all members of the Fort Smith Board of Directors often gather at a restaurant following their regularly scheduled voting meetings. The media has not received advanced notice of such meetings. To learn about these meetings, a reporter must attend the board meeting and then hope to be invited or overhear the board members discuss where they plan to eat.
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Jon Daniel was watching cartoons with one of his sons when he created a spoof Twitter account in the name of the Peoria mayor. Out of boredom, he said, he soon began sending profane messages about sex, drugs and alcohol.
Daniel never intended for the fake account to be seen by anyone other than his friends, and it never attracted more than a few dozen followers. But within weeks the raunchy parody led to a police raid of his home and ignited a debate about online satire, free speech and the limits of a mayor's power.
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Read More… from Fake Tweets’ Aftermath Stirs Debate About Satire, Freedom of Speech
Federal investigators appear to be looking into actions of the recently dissolved Ford-Iroquois Public Health Department. Responding to a tip, the Paxton Record filed a Freedom of Information Act request on Sept. 5 seeking the disclosure of any federal subpoenas for records that Iroquois County had received relating to the bi-county health department.
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Read More… from Denial of newspaper’s FOIA request confirms investigation into health department
Newspapers, government watchdog groups and open government advocates across the state of Georgia have cheered the recent decision of Forsyth County Superior Court requiring the city of Cumming and its mayor, Henry Ford Gravitt, to shell out $6,000 each for violations of the Georgia Open Meetings Act.
The prosecution of the city and mayor has been extolled as a victory for Attorney General Sam Olens. It has been a a victory for the blogger, Nydia Tisdale, whose rights to video tape a city council meeting were abridged.
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The chairman of the Virginia Press Associationís Freedom of Information Committee believes Suffolkís city attorneyís advice to hold meetings of a new task force in the open is on the right side of the law.
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Residents will soon have the option to request town data using Myersville’s Freedom of Information policy. No one has questioned why the Maryland rural western Frederick County town of 1,678 residents did not have a Freedom of Information Act, Town Manager Kristin Aleshire said at Tuesday’s meeting.
“We’re just keeping up with the times,” Aleshire said.
Myersville, incorporated in 1904, may adopt a policy that is similar to the Hyattsville FOIA model. “We found it to be a good fit for a smaller town,” Aleshire said.
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Read More… from Myersville (pop. 1,678)to adopt Freedom of Information policy
Capping seven years of work, San Jose officials have adopted a slew of sunshine reforms meant to keep City Hall more open. The vast majority of the 80 or so policies have been in place for the past several years but are only now set to become law following a unanimous vote from the San Jose City Council on Tuesday. By setting the reforms into law, it binds future city leaders to follow the same guidelines used by the current administration.
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Read More… from 7 years later, San Jose open-government reforms become law
Fulfilling a campaign promise by Mayor Betsy Price, Fort Worth is jumping on the open data government bandwagon. Last month, the city launched an online portal that provides direct access to a wellspring of public information.
Open data sites like the city’s new data.fortworthtexas.gov are based on the principle that government data is a public asset — like parks and roads — and should be made readily available to everyone.
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Read More… from City website a good first step toward government transparency
