First Amendment Coalition Seeks Details of Palin and Clinton Speeches

The First Amendment Coalition has filed requests under the Public Records Act for the speaking contracts for Sarah Palin's planned appearance at a fundraising event for CSU Stanislaus in June and for Bill Clinton's speech at UC Berkeley in February.

For more about the legal issues raised by these records requests, click here.

Diverse Groups Press Texas Energy Company for Increased Disclosure

As Austin, Texas, seeks to get 30 percent of its power from renewable energy sources by 2020, big industrials, environmental activists, and civic watchdogs find themselves agreeing on another goal - increased disclosure from Austin Energy.

The groups point to a $2.3 billion deal for a wood waste plant, a deal signed two years ago without much public scrutiny or input. Austin Energy officials have acknowledged they mishandled public debate over the wood waste plant, which did not begin until the City Council voted to sign the contract.

Austin Energy says it is reviewing its information with an eye toward increased disclosure without compromising its confidential information.

Read more details here.

Georgia State Attorney General's Office Requests Criminal Investigation of Former DOT Treasurer

The Georgia state attorney general's office has asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to conduct a criminal investigation of former DOT treasurer Earl Mahfuz. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution obtained the October 28, 2009 letter seeking the GBI investigation through a Georgia Open Records Act request.

The letter asks the GBI to determine whether Mahfuz instructed DOT employees to stop recording contracts before the end of fiscal year 2008 and whether Mahfuz lied to investigators about the unrecorded contacts, which total $153.4 million.

Read more here.

Details of contract for transparency site not transparent

ProPublica and other organizations requested copies of the Obama administration's $18 million contract with Smartronix, a software company hired to build the Web site "where taxpayers could easily track billions in federal stimulus money." However, the contract and related documents are heavily redacted. The General Services Administration justified the redactions by saying they are allowed if material "involves substantial risk of competitive injury" to a contractor. Of the 59-page technical proposal, 25 pages were completely redacted, and 14 pages had half or more of their content blacked out.

Back in July, a software company named Smartronix landed an $18 million contract to build a Web site where taxpayers could easily track billions in federal stimulus money. It was just another part of the Obama administration’s ongoing effort to bring transparency to stimulus spending, we were told.

But it seems the drive for transparency doesn’t cover the contract itself.

After weeks of prodding by ProPublica and other organizations, the General Services Administration released copies of the contract and related documents that are so heavily blacked out they are virtually worthless.

More here.

Prison corporation subject to public records laws

The Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled that prisons run by Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America must adhere to public records laws, The Tennessean reported. Alex Friedmann, associate editor of Prison Legal News, sued for access to the CCA's government contracts and other records. "With all due respect to CCA, this court is at a loss as to how operating a prison could be considered anything less than a governmental function," Judge D. Michael Swiney wrote in the opinion. However, the court ruled that the Private Prison Contracting Act limits the records that the corporation must make public.

Prisons run by Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America perform a government function and must follow public records laws, the Tennessee Court of Appeals has ruled.

The prison giant appealed the ruling issued last year by Davidson County Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman, who ruled that the corporation was the functional equivalent of government and that its administrators must turn over all records requested by prison reform advocate Alex Friedmann.

Friedmann, the associate editor of the monthly publication Prison Legal News, sued for access to several types of records, including CCA's government contracts, legal settlements and cases where CCA was sanctioned or fined.

More here.

Prison vendor accuses system of secret negotiations with competitor

MHM Correctional Services is suing Florida's prison system for allegedly favoring a competitor through secret deals, The Miami Herald reported. MHM accuses the prison system of holding "secret" and "closed-door" talks with its competitor before MHM learned that its extension proposal was rejected. The governor's office says MHM was rejected because the firm didn't meet the financial soundness requirements.

Florida's prison system is embroiled in a lawsuit filed by an ousted vendor on a major contract that accuses the state of illegally favoring a competitor.

The lawsuit was filed by MHM Correctional Services, which wants to extend its 2 ½ year contract to provide mental health care to more than 15,000 inmates in a dozen South Florida prisons.

In an effort to save money, the state privatized prison health care several years ago, but a legislative watchdog agency said in a report last January that the change has yielded "mixed results.''

More here.

Museum keeps contract for Tut exhibit under wraps

The Dallas Morning News has been denied a request for a copy of the contract between the Dallas Museum of Art and the organizers of the "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" exhibit. The museum won't discuss contract terms, reveal how many people saw the exhibit or provide board meeting minutes. The newspapers cites state law that requires most nonprofit organizations to release their financial records.

Taxpayers spend untold millions to subsidize the Dallas Museum of Art. But the museum says they have no right to know what kind of deal it cut with the for-profit organizers of the "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" exhibit.

The Dallas Morning News formally requested a copy of the Tut contract in January, citing a state law that requires most nonprofit organizations to make their financial records public.

Museum lawyer Gary Powell said the DMA would not comply because it promised exhibit organizers absolute confidentiality.

More here.

Open-government advocates disappointed about watered-down bill

A House bill that was initially lauded by watchdog groups is now being criticized by them, Washington Independent reported. The bill no longer requires all contracts stemming from the stimulus bill to be posted online. Only summaries of contracts worth more than $500,000 will be available to the public.

Internet junkies and wonks alike may have jumped the gun in looking forward to the new online transparency hyped by House members who vowed to put contracts doled out from the $800 billion stimulus package online.

That promise, included in the initial House bill, was hailed by watchdog groups, who pointed to it as real reform in government contracting. However, in a major concession to government contractors, which opposed having the contracts made public, the final bill requires only a “summary of the contracts” to be posted online; and even the summaries will only be available for contracts worth more than $500,000.

According to the law, the government has to provide certain data about federal contracts, including whether the contracting process was competitive, how the contract was awarded, and for those contracts over $500,000 “a summary of the contract.”

More here.

Campaign to rid universities of Coca-Cola makes use of FOI

Ingenious use of FOI:

The Texas Campaign to Stop Killer Coke’s University Open Records Project is an endeavor to obtain all of the Coca-Cola contracts between Texas state universities and colleges through the use of the Texas Open Records Act, a.k.a. Public Information Act, Chapter 552 of the Government Code. This project was undertaken with an eye towards organizing around the greater Killer Coke movement in Texas. The goal of the Campaign is to kick Coke out of our schools, businesses and governmental agencies for it’s worldwide labor, human rights and environmental abuses. See killercoke.org for more information.

More here.

Transparency after a done deal does little good

The new Right-to-Know Law makes it only voluntarily for Pennsylvania school boards to disclose the terms of contract proposals before they are signed.

Pennsylvania taxpayers have a right to know what their respective school districts are doing -- before it's too late to do anything about it.

The commonwealth's new Right-to-Know Law should have ensured complete transparency. Unfortunately, it does not, according to Terry Mutchler, executive director of the new Office of Open Records.

The public has every right to demand accountability. It should never be forced to come to school boards, hat in hand, begging to be given information about the untold costs to taxpayers.

More here.

S.D. governor opposes new open-records legislation

South Dakota legislation that would presume all records are open unless they are specifically closed or exempted by law has support from top-ranking Democrats and Republicans in each chamber. Gov. Mike Rounds, however, could veto the bill, which he said could lead to the disclosure of personal information about private citizens that had been gathered by an official.

A coalition of Republicans and Democrats began a drive Thursday to strengthen South Dakota's laws on open government records and to require more information about state government contracts and finances be available on the Internet.

The open-records legislation is patterned on Nebraska law and would presume that records are open unless they are specifically closed or exempted by law. South Dakota law currently says public records are only those that state law requires a government to keep.

Gov. Mike Rounds told South Dakota Newspaper Association members Thursday, however, that he prefers keeping the current approach.

More here.

We Want to Build a Power Plant....Secretly

State District Judge E. Wayne Phillips of Lewistown has ruled the city of Great Falls should not have refused to release drafts of documents to members of an environmental group last year.

The documents involved the city's relationship with the Southern Montana Electric Generation & Transmission Cooperative. SME and the city of Great Falls have proposed a coal-fired power plant east of the city.

At one point in his ruling, Phillips called a position taken by the city in the case "disingenuous." The ruling was dated June 12, but a mixup in the Clerk of Courts office prevented the parties from being notified until this week.

Anne Hedges, program director for the Helena-based Montana Environmental Information Center, said she expected a positive ruling and wondered "how the city could argue this case with a straight face."

"It's a wakeup call to the city of Great Falls," Hedges said Thursday.

More here.

NY Web Records Site Sues Over Data

An Albany-based think tank is suing Kiryas Joel's public school district for ignoring a document request that 730 other districts fulfilled.

The Empire Center for New York State Policy claims Kiryas Joel never responded to six letters since March 31 asking for copies of the contracts for its superintendent and teachers union — the same information it sought from every other New York school district.

The center has since posted the contracts it got and other public records — including a database of salaries for all 263,000 state employees — on a Web site (seethroughny.net) that attracted so many viewers when it went online July 31 that it crashed.

Now, the center is taking legal action against the only three school districts that flouted its request: Kiryas Joel, Uniondale and Mount Markham. Those districts could be liable for the center's legal costs if found to have violated the state Freedom of Information Law.

Kiryas Joel Superintendent Joel Petlin says there's a simple reason he never supplied the records: his office moved on March 1, and he never got the Empire Center's letters.

He said he'd be happy to fulfill the request, although he has no teachers contract to provide. The staff of his tiny school system — which serves fewer than 250 special education students from the Hasidic community — are paid on a salary scale the administration has set, Petlin said.

Kiryas Joel's village government and public school have a shaky record of complying with the public records law. The Times Herald-Record asked both for copies of their payrolls — records that governments and school districts routinely provide — three times last year and got no response.

In addition, village officials have ignored five requests from the newspaper since December 2007 for copies of building permits, Planning Board minutes and code violations. Those records were sought after a mudslide occurred in a construction area.

More here.

Pennsylvania Contracts Coming Online

In Pennsylvania, the sunshine just keeps on coming these days...

The state Department of Community and Economic Development has posted more than 400 grants and contracts on the Department of Treasury's new contract database as required by the state's new Right-to-Know Law. But as of Wednesday only a few dozen grants had been posted on the website by other state agencies. And at least five agencies have not posted any at all.

Read more here.

States Embracing Contract Transparency...

A nice look at the emerging sunshine in state governments by the Baltimore Sun...

Houston spent $33,000 on bullets this year, but "Space City" paid nearly three times that to buy horse food. And while fuel costs have increased $3 million in Missouri since 2005, at least the "Show Me State" taxpayers spent 35 percent less on contracts for barbecue and pizza.

From costly construction projects and health insurance payments to the meals bureaucrats expense when they work late, state and local governments are increasingly putting their checkbooks online - allowing regular citizens to follow the money.

Months after Maryland lawmakers approved a plan to put the state's financial information online, a member of Baltimore's City Council is proposing the same idea for City Hall.

"Sometimes a shroud of secrecy casts a bad light unnecessarily," said City Councilwoman Belinda Conaway, who plans to introduce her bill Monday. "Everything can be aboveboard, but because it's not public, people suspect that there's something wrong."

Public access advocates have cheered the trend and say the information is used by a wide spectrum of people, including nonprofit leaders, journalists and contractors. Kansas, Hawaii, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Texas have approved similar sites.

"We're seeing just a whole lot of this at the state and local level across the country in bits and pieces," said Charles N. Davis, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition. "It's subject to a couple of forces. One, politics, and people embracing transparency and becoming more proactive."

More here.

Government Contracts -- A Market Approach

This is pretty cool stuff...

INPUT, the authority on government business, announced that it has opened its electronic library containing thousands of federal and state and local contract documents to the public.

“We have over three thousand government contracts and task orders acquired under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) available now with more added every day,” said Ashlea Higgs, senior manager, INPUT Network. “Government FOIA offices are overloaded and requests often take several months to complete. By making our library available, we hope to offload some of the volume of requests to FOIA offices and provide immediate access to these documents to citizens and organizations that have a need.”

By providing access to government contracts, INPUT expects to help government agencies and contractors make better decisions as it relates to government planning and acquisition. Contractors may get the benefit of understanding the work currently being performed on a contract as a means to better understand the needs of that agency.

Government contractors don’t have the luxury of waiting for the government to release an RFP to decide if they should bid,” said Higgs. “Having access to an existing contract prior to release of an RFP can help a company decide much earlier whether it has the skills and resources to pursue an upcoming contract.”