The article got a little long so I placed it in the article body. Please read more to view the comments.
Here are the links to the next stories in the MJS series on open government.
- In Milton, a deal is done in the dark
This is an interesting article. At first it may make you think of the $200,000 the City of Pewaukee, after an off cycle closed session on May 27th, approved for the purchase of weed harvesting equipment. While I am not condoning such an action by City of Pewaukee officials, the reason for the the closed session was stated as:
Specifically to be discussed are issues regarding the current agreement regarding lake management services with Lake Pewaukee Sanitary District, and potential negotiations or other actions to be undertaken with respect to the threatened or actual breach of the agreement by the District.
Here is what Milton did differently than Pewaukee:
What's not in dispute is that the Milton City Council met in closed session over a period of nine months negotiating a development agreement with United Ethanol that included more than $800,000 in subsidies to the company and required the city to borrow $3 million to pay for infrastructure improvements such as roads, sewers and a well.
Other than the aldermen, the developer and a few city staff members or special insiders, no Milton city resident knew what they were talking about because agendas for the closed sessions never mentioned the subject of the secret meetings.
There are times that closed session are required. I wonder just how much the parkland on Lindsay Rd would have risen to if others had gotten wind of what the City wanted to buy. Even at $2.66 Million, I was probably cheap compared to what some developers would be willing, and able, to pay.
I popped over to the City of Milton's website and discovered a few things.
- No matter how much I have problems with the design and layout of the City of Pewaukee's website, Milton's is worse. Just see how many dumb pages you have to go through just to download an agenda/minutes document. And it is definitely a FireFox unfriendly site. In fact I could not properly download the PDF files without having to save to disk first. Stupid Internet Exploder only sites really tick me off, I see it as another way of defeating openness, and it completely goes against the whole notion of the World Wide Web; Open access to documents from any machine, not matter what system created it and what system is viewing it. But I digress.
- While I did not download every agenda from the website, I did see a bunch of this:
Consideration of a motion to convene into closed session pursuant to Wisconsin Statute
Section 19.85(1)(e) for the purpose of deliberating or negotiating the purchasing of public properties, investing of public funds or conducting other specified public business, whenever competitive or bargaining reasons required a closed session Re:Industrial Park Land Purchase
It does sound very vague to me. If all I had to go on for 9 months was this, I would be a little concerned. Then to find the council has to borrow $3 million to pay for infrastructure for an ethanol plant with out any prior notice, I would be pretty upset myself.
- While the government collects data on you, the law protects you
This article is about the information that the government has the ability to collect on people as well as a discussion about the ability for the people to find out what information has been collected.
Few of us like the idea that the information is gathered, but if we don't know what the government has collected and what it is doing with it, we run a greater risk that something will happen to this data that we would not want to happen.
Personally, I have nothing to hide, and I don't care if the government knows what movies I rent and how many times I vote. Heck, what is different from the fact that Amazon.com knows what I buy, in fact I think they know more about me than the government does. However, I do take comfort in the fact that I can request that information from the government, but I am not so sure about Amazon. Actually I am more concerned by something a little bit different. The last part of the quote eludes to this... we run a greater risk that something will happen to this data. The biggest problem is that all the information is in a computer somewhere, just waiting to be cracked by someone who wants it. Do you really think that if someone wanted to get the City of Pewaukee's voter registration database, it would really be all that difficult to get by cracking the system? I really doubt it. Yes, State and Federal systems are likely to have more security measures in place, but nothing is uncrackable. If anyone ever tells you a system is completely secure, turn around and walk away chuckling. The only completely secure computer is one that is unplugged, surrounded by 20 feet of lead, and completely surrounded by 100 feet of concrete all laying on the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean. And I still have to wonder...
Just remember, as citizens of the United States of America, it is your right to know what the government is doing, what information it is collecting on it's citizens, and how it is using that information. You should also be able to request information on what computer systems are used to store that information and what security measures are in place to protect that information. However, as a computer professional, I can see where I would not want to give that information out in the name of security.
- A law sheds light, within limits
This article, while targeted at the federal level, is a topic that is important on all levels of government. In the recent history of the City of Pewaukee, there have been comments made from the citizens that it takes too long and is too expensive to get information. From City officials there have been comments about the number of records requests being a problem.
The public is more interested than ever in asserting its right to know, said Daniel J. Metcalfe, director of the Justice Department's Office of Information and Privacy, pointing to statistics that show a continuing surge in requests.
Federal agencies received more than 4 million requests for information in fiscal 2004. That is a 71% increase from 2002, according to a study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office on the legislation's effectiveness. Agencies reported that they fully responded to 92% of the requests they received in 2004. About half of all FOIA requests are from individuals seeking information about veterans records or Social Security benefits.
To the City officials who think there are too many records requests, be glad you do not work for the Federal government. To the citizens, please have patience with the local officials, these people have other things to do in their jobs as well.
