I must have big fans on the north end of the Wasatch Front because the Standard-Examiner has weighed upon the survey I discussed yesterday.

In an editorial, the Ogden-based newspaper opines:

In Utah, our government is ailing, and it needs a large dose of integrity....

The editorial recommends following BGA's suggestions for improving government.

— NC

Labels: Open and Public Meetings Act, open records

The alternative title of this post is: "Utah: It's just like New York."



The Better Government Association recently released a ranking of how states score in protecting "itself against possible corruption and [making] its processes open and accountable to it citizens." The BGA ranking index considers the state's laws on transparency, keeping public officials accountable and placing limits on items like campaign contributions and gifts to public officials.

To read the entire report, click here then choose your preferred format.

Utah was ranked 36 overall, which tied it with New York. Utah was tied for third in open records laws, but the state's standing deteriorates from there.

The Beehive State was ranked 9th in protecting whistle blowers. Utah is 39th in campaign finance laws. (Insert your "Utah politics needs ethics reform" mantra here.)

Utah is No. 32 in open meetings laws and No. 47 in conflicts of interest laws.

— NC

Labels: Open and Public Meetings Act, open records, State Records Committee

Every weekday morning, Cedar City police send an e-mail informing reporters of people they arrested the previous day. The list has the suspect's name and the offense of which he or she is accused, a date of birth and address, and another item: a social security number.

Don't be surprised. While identity thieves have forced most of us to regard a social security number as top secret, government agencies in Utah still publish them on all sorts of documents. Search my files at The Tribune offices and you'll find dozens' of people's social security numbers printed on arrest reports, court files, jail logs and property records.

A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office discusses the scope of the issue. Local governments have collected these numbers for decades for identification purposes. Governments are suppose to make their records available to the public. The report opines:

In weighing how best to address some of these open issues over the availability of SSNs in public records, Congress will need to balance the need to keep SSNs confidential with the long standing tradition of open access to public records, the rights of states and localities to regulate the availability of records they maintain, and the use of SSNs in the private sector.

Utah law forbids releasing social security numbers as part of voter registration records and a few other specific circumstances, but there is no blanket prohibition. The GAO report suggests disclosing the numbers might already be illegal under a federal law, but says no one has tried enforcing that law. Meanwhile, scrubbing social security numbers from the Cedar City arrest log and scores of other public documents could be a massive undertaking for local governments.

To download the GAO report, click here.

Labels: open records

President Bush may be a lame duck, but that doesn't mean public access watchdogs are going to let him fly away without a fight.

A federal judge on Monday said Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive could go ahead with their suit against the Bush administration in a case involving millions of missing e-mails.

The two groups claim that the White House didn't adequately preserve e-mails during the period of 2003 to 2005.

In his defense Bush said: "Oh, shucks guys, there wasn't anything interestin' goin' on during those years anyway!"

OK, actually the president hasn't even come up with that lame of an excuse. In fact, he hasn't come up with any excuse at all for the missing public records. Instead, his cronies contend that the courts don't have authority to review their compliance with public records law.

Checks and balances? We don't need no stinkin' checks and balances!

— ML

Labels: FOIA, open records, White House

A few recent items about President-elect Obama and open government: 

ProPublica had a piece last week discussing Obama's history with transparency. (Why weren't there more articles about this during the campaign?)

On Friday, ProPublica followed up by reporting on Obama's plan to use technology to increase government transparency.

Some folks have their own plan for Obama. The Sunshine in Government Initiative has recommendations for the incoming administration. Click here for a PDF of the organization's four-page letter to Obama. Click here for a PDF of the the Sunshine in Government' white paper.

By the way, the polls are still open on my first FOIA under the Obama administration.

— NC

*Photo courtesy of The Associated Press. Draw your own conclusions about why Bush is in the shadows and Obama in the light.

Labels: open records, White House

You may be occupied with elections, the World Series and investigations into carbon monoxide alarms*, but there was another big story last week at the Ogden courthouse.

The Sierra Club received a favorable ruling in its open records lawsuit against the city of Ogden.

Before I start receiving e-mails from the Drill, Baby, Drill crowd, it's not that I'm rooting for the Sierra Club. The issue here is a public records case making it into a courtroom.

Utah has little case law on its public record laws, and that can lead to confusion on all sides about what documents are available to the public.

Regardless of who prevails in Sierra Club v. Ogden, the case has the potential to clarify what the government in Utah has to tell people.

— NC

*I had to give some credit to an investigation with my byline on it. Come on.

Labels: GRAMA, open records

A columnist for The Capital Times of Wisconsin offers a good set of open-government questions voters can ask candidates this season. The complete column can be found here, but I've pasted a sample below.

Do you favor disclosure of communications between the White House and agencies regarding administrative decision-making and information disclosure?

What are the appropriate limits of executive privilege in the disclosure of information?

Federal law protects only corporate whistle-blowers who reveal financial abuses. Should the law be expanded to protect the rights of private-sector workers who report violations of public health and safety laws?

How can we ensure public access to health and safety information?

At the state and local levels, government still throws up many obstacles. Problems include overcharging for records, delays in responding to open records requests, problems getting police and prosecution information. Legislators provide information about bill drafts to some interest groups while withholding information to other groups or members of the public, and they are
trying to limit access to court records online.

Meanwhile, local officials abuse laws allowing closed meetings, particularly when discussing economic development. Ask your local representatives about policies regarding closed meetings for economic development.

— NC

Labels: Candidates, FOIA, Open and Public Meetings Act, open records

If you ask the folks at California's Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, Misha lived a rather charmed life.

After all, what kid hasn't dreamed of living in an amusement park?

Of course, Misha wasn't a cotton candy-loving child but an African elephant, who lived most of her life in the shadow of several super-fast, steel-track roller coasters. And although she was often bullied by the other animals in the thrill park's elephant exhibit, there wasn't enough room in the limited enclosure for her to run away. Oh yeah -- and she had an 8-inch abscess in her jaw that took four years to heal and often got infected.

Misha died last week at Utah's Hogle Zoo at the relatively young age of 27. Within three days, we were able to document quite a few of the more tragic details of her life in the Salt Lake Tribune.



How were we able to tell Misha's sad story so fast? Well, as it turns out, Six Flags was briefly owned by the City of Vallejo, Calif. -- which means her veterinary records were subject to the California Public Records Act.

Astute to this fact, the non-profit In Defense of Animals procured the vet records of Misha and several other members of the Six Flags herd a few years back -- which meant that when The Tribune came looking last week, the records were easily to obtain.

-mdl

Labels: open records, zoo