From The Gazette:
Two in three Iowans polled favor the creation of a board in state government to handle citizen complaints about violations of open meetings and access to government documents.
The findings come as Gov. Terry Branstad has joined open government advocates in pushing the Legislature to create such a board, staffed by a full-time attorney, to handle complaints.
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From The Daily Herald:
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Democrats are making one final push to get the government records that were used in last year's redistricting process.
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Read More… from Utah Democrats pay for records they claim should be public
From the Student Press Law Center:
The South Carolina attorney general intervened Tuesday in a state Supreme Court case to decide whether school administrator associations fall under the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act.
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From courier-journal.com:
FRANKFORT, KY. — In a sharply critical decision, a judge has ordered a state agency to pay $16,550 in fines and $56,663 in legal costs to three newspapers for illegally withholding public records involving child-abuse deaths and serious injuries.
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Read More… from Judge orders state agency to pay legal fees for illegally withholding public records
A few open government and FOIA news items selected from many of interest that we might or might not have drawn attention to earlier:
Private-sector lobbyists stand to collect public-sector pensions
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From Keizertimes:
The city of Keizer has unveiled a new public records retrieval system that is touted as saving thousands of dollars and more effectively serving residents.
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Read More… from Keizer (Ore.) public records now easier to search
A few open government and FOIA news items from the last couple days that we might not have drawn attention to earlier:
Expert: Anaheim records policy violates state law
The Anaheim Planning Department's records retention policy violates state law by asking employees to purge certain city records before they are old enough to be legally destroyed, Voice of OC's open-government consultant, Terry Francke, said Wednesday.
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From SanLuisObispo.com:
When the county’s top two administrators, David Edge and Gail Wilcox, were canned in 2009, the public realized that there were problems at the top levels of county government.
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They might never have found out the scope of the dysfunction had it not been for the California Public Records Act.
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