Mr. Terrell was, until last week, chairman of the Walton County Planning Commission. He abruptly gave up the top job amid criticism over a meeting gone awry and an apparent attempt to evade Florida’s open-government, or sunshine, law.
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Tag: local government
Mayor questions public records process
Bloomington (IN) Mayor Tari Renner wants elected officials, not hired staff, to have more say on disputed requests from the public for city records.
Renner’s call for more oversight stems from the city’s recent denial of a Pantagraph Freedom of Information Act request seeking details about the termination of Bloomington Police Officer Brenton VanHoveln, who allegedly falsified documents. The Pantagraph is asking the public access counselor in the state attorney general's office to review the city’s denial and require it to release the records.
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Civic hacking is taking off
The open government movement has become super-charged over the last year. Largely in part to the people and organizations on the front lines. At the 2013 Code for America Summit held in San Francisco, California, I got a chance to speak with some of the people who are volunteering their time, finding better ways to make government work for us, and bridging the gap for citizens to access and participate in their government.
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42 Mingo County (WV) employees have county-owned vehicles
Forty-two Mingo County (pop. 26,103) employees drive vehicles that are owned by the county, according to information resulting from one in a series of Freedom of Information Act requests filed by the Daily News.
After being required to file an FOIA request to receive the hourly salaries of all county employees, the paper was again required to file FOIA requests for the names of all employees who are issued a county-owned vehicle to drive, as well the use of a county gas card.
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Judge: Fort Smith Police, City Must Comply With Requests In Whistle Blower Case
Fort Smith Police Chief Kevin Lindsey and two other officers named in an Arkansas Whistle Blower lawsuit must do more to comply with discovery requests from the plaintiffs, a judge ruled Friday.
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Future court rulings should require state chambers of commerce and other groups receiving tax dollars to adhere to open-records
Hilton Head Island businessman Skip Hoagland scored big last month when a circuit court judge ruled that the Town of Hilton Head Island could not charge for the time it will take town staff to comply with a subpoena Hoagland has filed, seeking documents. The ruling means Hoagland will only have to pay the cost of copying roughly 4,800 pages of town documents he has requested, including accounting details, spending records and contract bids.
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City of Aztec (NM) strives for open government with new webpage
One thing is clear — city officials want citizens to see how local government operates.
Last month, the city of Aztec added a new page to its website in the effort to make public city records more accessible.
The new page features links to request public records, access the city's annual budgets, look at gross receipts collections per year, examine bids and contracts, read the city's 10-year fiscal analysis and summary, and other information.
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Supreme Court: Prayer is allowed to open government meetings
Prayers that open town council meetings do not violate the Constitution even if they routinely stress Christianity, a divided Supreme Court ruled Monday.
The court said in 5-4 decision that the content of the prayers is not significant as long as they do not denigrate non-Christians or proselytize.
The ruling by the court's conservative majority was a victory for the town of Greece, N.Y., outside of Rochester. The Obama administration sided with the town.
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FOIA requests, costs increasing in many municipalities
The law allowing residents and business to request public records may be dubbed the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, but as municipalities are seeing more and more requests come in each year, officials say the cost to comply with the law is anything but free.
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Open Gov Local Gov – Open Government Guide
From participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre to social audits in Andra Pradesh to tracking snow ploughs in Chicago, many of the most iconic examples of open government innovation have been created not by national governments, but by cities, states or provinces. This is perhaps not surprising, since local authorities are often responsible for the tangible public services, from road maintenance to education, and sanitation to policing, that form the most immediate relationships between government and citizens.
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