Tag Archives: Transparency

More about Open Records Requests

How do we know what agreements the Industrial Authority has with Wiregrass Power LLC? Open records requests!

Some local councils don’t even have open records request forms, and many don’t have them posted online. But that doesn’t have to stop you!

As mentioned, there are plenty of open records requests still to be filed. If you want suggestions, inquire at information at l-a-k-e.org (the dashes are part of the address). For how, see the previous post on the Open Records Act. Send LAKE the results of your request and we may publish them. If you want your name mentioned in a LAKE post as the open records requestor, please say so.

Also remember that any communications you may receive from an elected Continue reading

Communities watching boards

Susan Hall Hardy says that in most places industrial authority executives don’t interact with their communities. Well, paraphrasing what Yakov Smirnoff used to say, in Lowndes County, community interact with officials!

Here is her comment from 15 March 2011 on this blog:

Not to be rude, although honesty is very often perceived that way these days, but, the industrial authority executives rarely thank their communities. In the six states I’m most familiar with, these fellows see themselves as beholden only to their employers. After all, they work with their directors, elected officials, a few bankers and city/county department heads. Rarely do they come in direct contact with the average voter, employee or homeowner, although all those people often pay a large part of their salaries and office operating expenses. Despite the public funding, these groups are usually tight lipped about how they do business and rarely provide the public with records or audits. We’ve all put up with that manner of doing business for so long we now see it as just that — the way you do business. We’d never accept that from a nonprofit organization, a charity group or most elected officials. Shame on us all.
Susan, you’re helping by reading, and you’re helping more by posting. Many local officials have noticed LAKE and this blog because they know people read it.

Anyone who wants to help still more, you, too, can go to a meeting. The Industrial Authority is a good one to attend, but I hear the Tree Commission isn’t trying as hard to enforce things, and does anybody know anything the Hospital Authority does? The Airport Authority? Continue reading

Obstacles to openness

Beth Fouhy writes for AP that Openness in state gov’t? AP survey shows obstacles
More openness in government. Lawmakers across the country, including the Republicans who took control in many states this year, say they want it. But a survey of all 50 states by The Associated Press has found that efforts to boost openness often are being thwarted by old patterns of secrecy.

The survey did find signs of progress in a number of states, especially in technological efforts to make much more information available online. But there also are restrictions being put in place for recent electronic trends, such as limits on access to officials’ text messages.

The story lists some good progress in some states, including Alabama. Then it goes into some backsliding: Continue reading

LAKE as a news medium

We are the media, and you can be, too!

According to the OPEN Government Act of 2007:

[T]he term ‘a representative of the news media’ means any person or entity that gathers information of potential interest to a segment of the public, uses its editorial skills to turn the raw materials into a distinct work, and distributes that work to an audience. In this clause, the term ‘news’ means information that is about current events or that would be of current interest to the public. Examples of news-media entities are television or radio stations broadcasting to the public at large and publishers of periodicals (but only if such entities qualify as disseminators of ‘news’) who make their products available for purchase by or subscription by or free distribution to the general public. These examples are not all-inclusive. Moreover, as methods of news delivery evolve (for example, the adoption of the electronic dissemination of newspapers through telecommunications services), such alternative media shall be considered to be news-media entities.
It’s pretty obvious LAKE qualifies as a news medium with its blog, On the LAKE Front, as well as its web pages and its facebook page.

Here is the bill’s full text. The bill was sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy and 17 others, ranging from Sen. Barack Obama to Sen. Johnny Isakson. It was signed into law by President George W. Bush 31 December 2007.

Of course that’s really just a detail, having to do with the Wikileaks comparison.

Most of what LAKE does has more to do with Georgia law, about open records requests and this passage, O.C.G.A. § 50-14-1-c.:

“Visual, sound, and visual and sound recording during open meetings shall be permitted.”

None of that requires a news medium. Any citizen can file open records requests or record public meetings. Remember, you are the media!

-jsq for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange

“the citizenry has a right to scrutinise the state.” –Julian Assange

Some people compare LAKE to Wikileaks, so let’s go there. Julian Assange, like Wendell Berry, links the civil rights movement and the environmental movement. He then says:
“For the Internet generation this is our challenge and this is our time. We support a cause that is no more radical a proposition than that the citizenry has a right to scrutinise the state. The state has asserted its authority by surveilling, monitoring and regimenting all of us, all the while hiding behind cloaks of security and opaqueness. Surely it was only a matter of time before citizens pushed back and we asserted our rights.”

LAKE’s motto is:

Citizen dialog for transparent process
That makes Assange’s proposition
“the citizenry has a right to scrutinise the state”
sound very familiar to us.

Locally it’s more a matter of elected and appointed bodies ignoring their chartered responsibilities to the public good and the general welfare. Well, many people are also tired of the permit inspection brigade, but that’s another story.

Assange also adds: Continue reading

Radio theater by elected officials –George Rhynes

George Rhynes posted the appended on his blog the same day he spoke on the same subjects at the Valdosta City Council, 10 February 2011.


George Rhynes speaking at the
regular meeting of the Valdosta City Council, 10 February 2011.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Excerpts from his blog post: Continue reading

Citizens can video police in Atlanta

Ride your bicycle, have to show a drivers’ license, get your camera stolen by police? Not in Atlanta any longer!

Bill Rankin writes some good news in the AJC, APD won’t hinder citizens who videotape cops,

Faced with complaints from a citizen watchdog group, Atlanta police will stop interfering with people who videotape officers performing their duties in public, an agreement reached with the city Thursday says.

The settlement, which also calls for the city to pay $40,000 in damages, requires city council approval.

The agreement resolves a complaint filed by Marlon Kautz and Copwatch of East Atlanta, a group that films police activity with cell phones and hand-held cameras. The group has volunteers who go out on patrols and begin videotaping police activity when they come across it.

That’s Copwatch of East Atlanta; here’s their press release, including video of the incident. Continue reading

Transparency for power companies?

Danny Orrock writes an op-ed in the AJC, Pro & Con: Do Georgia’s electric co-ops need better oversight?
Fundamental determinations like power rates and capital expenditures should not be made in the dark — if Georgia Power customers can participate, there’s no reason EMC customers shouldn’t have the same opportunity. Transparency benefits members and the utility. The situation at Cobb EMC would likely not be so contentious if members had been allowed to meaningfully engage with the board and management several years ago.
Sounds like a good idea, especially considering Cobb EMC is the one that wants to build a coal plant in Ben Hill County.

On the same page, Paul Wood argues that Continue reading

What you didn’t hear at the County Commission meeting

The interesting commission meeting will be the next one. Remember, Chairman Paulk said they were still operating by the old rules at the meeting that happened this week. So next meeting they may actually refuse to let people speak on certain topics.

On the Frank Barnas Newstalk105.9 WVGA radio show 25 Jan 2011 the morning before the County Commission meeting, County Commmission Chairman Ashley Paulk complained that Citizens Wishing to be Heard has been abused and meetings are not free; there are people to pay.

“In these times we’ve got to run efficient meetings.”
Chairman Paulk also invoked Tuscon and said:
“You need to monitor people who are there.”

“You want a little better control over who and where they are.”

So posting videos of the meeting to the web should be a good idea so everyone could see what is going on.

And in the larger picture, should we be more concerned with a few dollars now or with the ability of citizens to be heard or for that matter with the long-term economics and health of the county?

Policies and Procedures for Citizens Wishing to be Heard

The host asked if tonight would be the time to comment on the new policy, and Chairman Paulk responded: Continue reading

Draft Resolution on Citizens Wishing to be Heard

Here’s the draft resolution on Citizens Wishing to be Heard. Previously we posted that on Tuesday’s Lowndes County Commission agenda is an item about:
5. Resolution Establishing Policies and Procedures for Citizens Wishing to Be Heard and Consideration of Lowndes County Board of Commissioners Policies and Procedures for Citizens Wishing to Be Heard
Today I went by the county palace (hey, they call it that, too!) and asked Paige Dukes, the County Clerk, what was in the old resolution and what’s in the new draft resolution. She said there was no old resolution, and a bit later she sent me the new draft resolution, which is in the PDF below.
From: “Paige Dukes” <paiged@lowndescounty.com>
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:32:35 -0500
To: “John S. Quarterman” <jsq@quarterman.org>
Subject: Resolution Draft 1.24.2011.pdf – Adobe Acrobat Professional

Resolution Draft 1.24.2011.pdf

It’s a PDF of a scan of a paper page, so I don’t have the plain text. If somebody wants to type it in and send it to me, have at it.

See you 5:30 PM tomorrow evening (Tuesday 25 Jan 2011) at 327 N. Ashley Street, Valdosta, GA 31601. They start on the dot or slightly early, and it’s a light agenda, so be on time and don’t blink or you’ll miss it.

-jsq