{"id":2193,"date":"2011-04-13T17:21:31","date_gmt":"2011-04-13T21:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/04\/vlcia-charging-for-access-to-agendas-and-minutes.html"},"modified":"2011-04-13T17:21:31","modified_gmt":"2011-04-13T21:21:31","slug":"vlcia-charging-for-access-to-agendas-and-minutes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/04\/vlcia-charging-for-access-to-agendas-and-minutes.html","title":{"rendered":"VLCIA charging for access to agendas and minutes"},"content":{"rendered":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/98706376@N00\/5616869715\/in\/set-72157626492317544\/\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\"   src=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5145\/5616869715_0bdfd77389_m.jpg\"><\/a>\nHow much should it cost for a citizen to get access to agendas\nand minutes of a tax-funded board?\nHow does about $2 per meeting strike you?\n<p>\nBobbi Anne Hancock filed an open records request for the\nagendas and minutes of all regularly scheduled and called\nmeetings of the\nVLCIA letter asking $125.09 for copies of agendas and minutes\nof the\nValdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA)\nfrom 2006 to the present, and got this letter back:\n<p align=\"center\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/98706376@N00\/5616869453\/in\/set-72157626492317544\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border:none;\"  src=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5063\/5616869453_53833e7fdd_z.jpg\"><\/a>\n<p>\nSo at 12 meetings per year for five years plus another 3 months,\nthat would be about 63 meetings, divided into $125.09 gets\nabout $1.99 per meeting.\n<p>\nIs this normal practice?\nLet&#8217;s compare.\n\n<!--more-->\n<ul>\n<li>2002-present <a href=\"http:\/\/lowndescounty.com\/minutes.asp\">Lowndes County<\/a>\n<li>2007-present <a href=\"http:\/\/www.valdostacity.com\/Index.aspx?page=193\">City of Valdosta<\/a>\n<li>1998-present <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hahira.ga.us\/council_meetings.html\">City of Hahira<\/a>\n<li>2009-present <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cityoflakeparkga.com\/minutes.html\">City of Lake Park<\/a>\n<li>2008-present <a href=\"http:\/\/cityofremerton.com\/govlinks.htm\">City of Remerton<\/a>\n<li>2005-present <a href=\"http:\/\/dasherga.com\/minutes.php\">City of Dasher<\/a>\n<\/ul>\nAll available for free to the public on the web at $0 (zero dollars) per meeting.\n<p>\nWell, maybe that&#8217;s unfair.\nThose are elected councils, and besides, maybe Dasher has more resources\nthan the Industrial Authority&#8217;s $3 million a year in tax revenue.\n<p>\nAfter all, VLCIA only has\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2011\/03\/vlcia-bonds.html\">\n$8,379,503 net assets<\/a>\nand it has to spend those on things like\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2011\/02\/vlcia-payments-for-6-dec-2010-biomass-forum.html\">\nmore than $17,000 for speakers for a biomass &#8220;Forum&#8221;.<\/a>\n<p>\nHow could the Industrial Authority possibly afford to put its\nagendas and minutes online like every municipality in the county\nalready does?\n<p>\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How much should it cost for a citizen to get access to agendas and minutes of a tax-funded board? How does about $2 per meeting strike you? Bobbi Anne Hancock filed an open records request for the agendas and minutes of all regularly scheduled and called meetings of the VLCIA letter asking $125.09 for copies [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,120,40,601,14,2,602,603,88,604,54],"tags":[231,193,8738,4733,8790,8701,8791,8792,7,232,4431,8793,6,180,8749],"class_list":["post-2193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-biomass","category-community","category-dasher","category-economy","category-government","category-hahira","category-lake-park","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-remerton","category-valdosta-city-council","tag-agendas","tag-allan-ricketts","tag-biomass","tag-bobbi-a-hancock","tag-dasher","tag-georgia","tag-hahira","tag-lake-park","tag-lowndes-county","tag-minutes","tag-open-records-request","tag-remerton","tag-valdosta","tag-valdosta-lowndes-county-industrial-authority","tag-vlcia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-zn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}