With state and local government secrecy on the rise in many U.S. jurisdictions, this database offers a view of state open records and open meetings laws, and provides information about how to get what you are looking for, as well as ensure that government is operating in the sunlight.
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Read More… from From MJS: Open records laws across the nation
Missouri's open records laws would not cover some farming data under a measure that has passed the Missouri Senate.
The legislation, which passed with a bipartisan majority of 25-6, would require state agencies to keep confidential the information farmers submit for voluntary agricultural programs, such as registration data for animal disease tracking programs. Anyone who improperly releases that information could be sued.
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Read More… from Missouri Senate passes farm exemptions to open records laws
After a bill requiring state courts to abide by open records laws died last week, a prominent officer of the court said the ballot box might be the only solution to judges exempting themselves from transparency laws.
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Read More… from A new option to force the Colorado judicial branch to abide by open records laws?
Lawmakers stripped an education bill of major proposed changes to Indiana's open records laws on Thursday after concerns were raised about how the measure would impact all government agencies and not just schools.
The legislation aims to simplify school management by eliminating duplicate and obsolete reporting requirements that school administrators say are taking resources away from the classroom. But the legislation also included a provision that would allow government agencies to charge a fee for information that takes longer than two hours to gather.
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Read More… from Public record search fee removed from Ind. bill
It’s already been deemed the “Worst Bill of 2015,” and has united in opposition forces on the left, right and center who normally can’t agree on what color the sky is.
An editorial Wednesday morning in the Las Vegas Review-Journal described the bill:
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Read More… from Government agencies’ attempt to ‘clarify’ open records laws meets resistance
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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From the Mail Tribune:
SALEM — A bill that would close off the records of those who hold concealed handgun licenses in Oregon easily passed the House, but its future in the Senate is, again, questionable.
It's the fourth time the House has passed such a bill, but each time the bill died in the Senate in the 2009 and 2011 sessions.
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Read More… from Future of bill to protect concealed weapon permits uncertain in Senate
Opinion from The Times Leader:
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The key: Strip away the secrecy of those involved, and their bad behavior ends.
That same notion applies on a much larger and more consequential level in Pennsylvania, where state law allows people – often with the help of the startup state Office of Open Records – to sleuth through public information about state and county governments, local school boards and other taxpayer-funded bodies.
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From The Wichita Eagle:
WICHITA — Go Wichita, the convention and visitors’ bureau, will receive its annual budget of more than $2 million in public funds amid concerns that it does not comply with open-government laws.
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What looked like a routine measure on the council agenda erupted into a debate about whether private agencies funded by the public should be exempt from state open records laws.
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Read More… from Go Wichita gets budget approved amid controversy over public accountability
