Roanoke Times: Local officials prefer clouds to sunshine
Local officials prefer clouds to sunshine
By Christian Trejbal
http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/trejbal/wb/154807
Sunshine Week, the special time of year when we reflect on the importance of open government for a free society, begins today.
During the last 12 months, lawmakers great and small sought new ways to prevent Americans from knowing what government does in their name. Sure, there were some victories for the public, but secrecy remained distressingly popular.
At least here in the New River Valley, there wasn't much backsliding from openness. While the likes of Christiansburg's Del. Dave Nutter were busy in Richmond fighting against accountability, our local leaders held the line.
It wasn't hard, seeing as the line they held is so far into the shadows to begin with.
Local governments don't break Virginia's open meetings laws and Freedom of Information Act. They post proper notices for public meetings and respond to records requests. They just don't go out of their way to make government transparent.
Consider something as simple as a town or county Web site. Citizens might expect to find some simple things. Detailed agendas for town council and board of supervisors meetings would be handy. Afterward, it would be nice to see minutes.
Good luck finding such information, at least in any useful form.
Giles County, for example, hides its agenda, if it posts one at all.
So does Pulaski County, but at least they post minutes so citizens can find out what happened after the fact -- many months after the fact. The most recent ones are for meetings that took place last summer.
Governments that do post their meeting agendas seem to go out of their way to make them mostly useless. They fill them with cryptic municipal language and withhold supporting documents that would help residents understand what's going on.
Radford City Council's March 10 meeting included a "resolution in support of a grant application through Virginia Recreational Trail Program in the amount of $50,000 for Wildwood Park improvements."
Who is applying for the grant? What improvements do they want to make? The documents that council received prior to the meeting no doubt contained the answers to such questions, but the public didn't get to see them without jumping through hoops.
Local governments don't release their agendas in a timely manner, either. Governments that meet on Tuesday, for example, typically distribute an agenda late on Friday. The public has no real chance to seek an explanation before it is time to gather at town hall.
Even if they could get them out early on Friday, it could make a difference.
This sort of stuff isn't difficult. If elected officials and government employees cared about keeping the public in the loop, they could easily post comprehensive agendas well in advance and minutes afterward.
They could make government transparent.
Yet around here, even the most fundamental documents are sometimes tough to find.
The old saying that ignorance of the law is no excuse is dangerous in Christiansburg. The town, like many others, doesn't put its code online, fostering legal ignorance.
There might be hope. The town plans to overhaul its Web site in the coming months. Maybe amidst the beautification, designers will find space for helpful content.
The most open government in the NRV is Blacksburg. There, they've implemented some exciting things in recent years, not least live, streaming video of council meetings over the Internet. Afterward, the video is archived on the town Web site for anyone to watch.
Other local governments haven't even figured out how to use a tape recorder, so hoping they will follow Blacksburg's lead might be too optimistic.
Not that Blacksburg is perfect. The town council has a habit of conducting its most interesting discussions after most people have gone home. Council members sit quietly at the dais, but get them into the after-meeting work session, and they hold serious conversations about how to run the town.
Yet few citizens hear these talks. The council turns off the cameras for those meetings. Indeed, they retreat to a cramped, windowless room in the basement. The sessions are open to the public, even if they're not conducive to the public.
Elected officials almost invariably slide toward secrecy. They somehow convince themselves that the public doesn't want or need to know some things.
And maybe a lot of people don't care about the daily and weekly doings of government. But some people do, and those watchdogs deserve better access in the NRV.
Trejbal is an editorial writer for The Roanoke Times based in the New River Valley bureau in Christiansburg.
By Christian Trejbal
http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/trejbal/wb/154807
Sunshine Week, the special time of year when we reflect on the importance of open government for a free society, begins today.
During the last 12 months, lawmakers great and small sought new ways to prevent Americans from knowing what government does in their name. Sure, there were some victories for the public, but secrecy remained distressingly popular.
At least here in the New River Valley, there wasn't much backsliding from openness. While the likes of Christiansburg's Del. Dave Nutter were busy in Richmond fighting against accountability, our local leaders held the line.
It wasn't hard, seeing as the line they held is so far into the shadows to begin with.
Local governments don't break Virginia's open meetings laws and Freedom of Information Act. They post proper notices for public meetings and respond to records requests. They just don't go out of their way to make government transparent.
Consider something as simple as a town or county Web site. Citizens might expect to find some simple things. Detailed agendas for town council and board of supervisors meetings would be handy. Afterward, it would be nice to see minutes.
Good luck finding such information, at least in any useful form.
Giles County, for example, hides its agenda, if it posts one at all.
So does Pulaski County, but at least they post minutes so citizens can find out what happened after the fact -- many months after the fact. The most recent ones are for meetings that took place last summer.
Governments that do post their meeting agendas seem to go out of their way to make them mostly useless. They fill them with cryptic municipal language and withhold supporting documents that would help residents understand what's going on.
Radford City Council's March 10 meeting included a "resolution in support of a grant application through Virginia Recreational Trail Program in the amount of $50,000 for Wildwood Park improvements."
Who is applying for the grant? What improvements do they want to make? The documents that council received prior to the meeting no doubt contained the answers to such questions, but the public didn't get to see them without jumping through hoops.
Local governments don't release their agendas in a timely manner, either. Governments that meet on Tuesday, for example, typically distribute an agenda late on Friday. The public has no real chance to seek an explanation before it is time to gather at town hall.
Even if they could get them out early on Friday, it could make a difference.
This sort of stuff isn't difficult. If elected officials and government employees cared about keeping the public in the loop, they could easily post comprehensive agendas well in advance and minutes afterward.
They could make government transparent.
Yet around here, even the most fundamental documents are sometimes tough to find.
The old saying that ignorance of the law is no excuse is dangerous in Christiansburg. The town, like many others, doesn't put its code online, fostering legal ignorance.
There might be hope. The town plans to overhaul its Web site in the coming months. Maybe amidst the beautification, designers will find space for helpful content.
The most open government in the NRV is Blacksburg. There, they've implemented some exciting things in recent years, not least live, streaming video of council meetings over the Internet. Afterward, the video is archived on the town Web site for anyone to watch.
Other local governments haven't even figured out how to use a tape recorder, so hoping they will follow Blacksburg's lead might be too optimistic.
Not that Blacksburg is perfect. The town council has a habit of conducting its most interesting discussions after most people have gone home. Council members sit quietly at the dais, but get them into the after-meeting work session, and they hold serious conversations about how to run the town.
Yet few citizens hear these talks. The council turns off the cameras for those meetings. Indeed, they retreat to a cramped, windowless room in the basement. The sessions are open to the public, even if they're not conducive to the public.
Elected officials almost invariably slide toward secrecy. They somehow convince themselves that the public doesn't want or need to know some things.
And maybe a lot of people don't care about the daily and weekly doings of government. But some people do, and those watchdogs deserve better access in the NRV.
Trejbal is an editorial writer for The Roanoke Times based in the New River Valley bureau in Christiansburg.
