New Orleans City Business reporter Jennifer Larino wrote an excellent article a couple of weeks ago on the reforms Mayor Landrieu will need to tackle… »
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Like using scribes in the age of the printing press to answer public records requests
There’s something wrong when it takes over three months to obtain a murder listing from the New Orleans Police Department, but you can go to Craig’s List anytime to find a sofa.
Maybe the scribes at the NOPD are overworked, or maybe the city has cut the budget for fountain pens, or maybe the NOPD… »
“To help and defend”
New Orleans citizens didn’t need any confirmation of their fear that rogue behavior was metastasizing throughout the NOPD when the Department of Justice announced investigations into civil rights violations, including a conspiracy to cover up police shootings of unarmed citizens on the Danziger Bridge in the days after Hurricane Katrina.
The public already feared the… »
“Seeking nothing in particular and everything in general”
When citizens feel that their jobs, their reputations, or the safety of themselves and their loved ones, might be threatened by a public revelation of something they said to an elected official with the expectation of reasonable privacy, what is the responsibility of the government to protect them from harm, or to protect their communications… »
Jindal helps kill public records bill; supports alternative
Bill Barrow, writing for The Times-Picayune:
BATON ROUGE — With the backing of Gov. Bobby Jindal, a House committee killed a bill that would have opened nearly all records of the governor’s executive office to public inspection, a move that the legislative sponsor said would bring real transparency to a state that touts the concept. …
The… »
Blogger Wins $225,000 Settlement Over Public Records Delay
Matt Sanchez, writing for the Citizen Media Law Project:
Washington state political blogger Stefan Sharkansky won a $225,000 settlement last week from a county government that took two years to comply with his request for information. The settlement ended Sharkansky’s lawsuit against King County over officials’ improper delay in producing documents related to the state’s… »
Public records requests made in “cuneiform on Susquehanna River-clay tablets that must then be delivered by yak train”
There are lots of ways to stifle public access to government records. Despite the implementation of new Sunshine Laws in Pennsylvania, the new open records director complains that Governor Rendell is using procedural tactics to block public access to records.
For example, the Lebanon, Pennsylvania Daily News editorialized:
That lawyers for the administration have told state agency… »
