Open Government Ordinance Held Again
Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 4/22/08 @ 10:13 pm - Filed Under City Council
The Open Government ordinance was held again but this time at the request of its author - councilman Mitch Harper. Harper indicated that the timing hasn’t worked out for him as he hasn’t been able to review city attorney Joe Bonahoom’s proposed language changes. Bonahoom has made several changes, including a number of “Whereas” statements, and the language is now more complicated than the simple ordinance Harper proposed.
Unfortunately this is why it’s important to pass a good ordinance when you have the chance. Who knows what’s going to happen in the future or what topics will turn into a political football. It’s also unclear if the city would even be able to abide by the ordinance now given the recent departure of its webmaster.
All in all, another disappointment for an otherwise good ordinance…
UPDATE: For more on this and other open government related business see Stephen Parker’s latest post at Around Fort Wayne
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4 Responses to “Open Government Ordinance Held Again”
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I did review the language sent me. Indeed, I reviewed it within the hour it was sent.
I have not made a final decision as to editing, changing or proposing additions to the language of the ordinance.
There are several circumstances that make it wiser to delay the ordinance’s consideration until next month.
One, as you have pointed out, is that the City is advertising the position of webmaster.
The other is that the second meeting of the Open Government Task Force is next week. Given the delay in consideration due to cancellation of two City Council sessions and the prior hold, we find ourselves near enough the Second Meeting of the City Council’s Task Force that it allows discussion of a range of open government topics while we have an ordinance before Council.
As I have advocated in pursuit of open government goals - this is an ongoing, cooperative venture that draws on the desires of the public and is intended to create a culture in local government where openess and the free flow of public information is a consideration in every department, in every decision, by every official and employee.
I appreciate the sentiments expressed to me by those interested in the work of the Task Force that they were gratified to see early introduction of city statutory changes.
The third is the consideration I had given the city administration to delay the implementation date of the ordinance. Until discussion had been ended at the prior meeting, I had begun to talk of an amendment to an effective date of June 1.
This was in recognition of my soliciting the opinion of the administration as to any input they wished to express regarding the ordinance. The administration had informally asked for a delay of three months from date of passage and I suggested June 1, which was agreed.
I had solicited the input so as to assure that any concerns from the public information, IT or law staff were addressed.
That explains it. I was not sure what the reason was at the Regulations Committee meeting of the City Council on April 22.
And there is another reason associated with the Public Access Link (PAL) announced by both the City and the County and spearheaded by Allen County John McGauley.
Wouldn’t it be ideal if the intent and spirit of the future ordinance applied to the City and the County? That is now a possibility, and that potential also raises the question of the effective date.
This is starting to make sense. And here I thought maybe all the lawyers couldn’t agree on legalese.
No, Dan, the county will need to pass their own ordinance to do so.
As I noted when I introduced the ordinance on notice, I would be communicating with other local units to encourage them to post the meeting notices electronically.
I had spoken with Commissioner Brown about it. And, of course, John and I have had a series of talks about how this could practically be done as a single site. This has been a dream of John McGauley’s for quite some time. John got agreement and it is moving forward under his leadership.
And I had pledged to seek legislative support for changing the state statute to, at the least, bring all first and second class cities under the higher standard for electronic notice that the state requires of itself. That is moving forward as well.
John has more ideas. Dan, you and I and many othes have more ideas on how to make government more open and accessible to the public.
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