Re: Metalevel discussions

[Shirley Kressel]

Don,

I think this is a great idea!  A fabulous idea!  

I've spent eons trying to force public records out of my City, State and Federal governments.  You're lucky they were only going to charge you $15 -- usually I'm quoted $600 to $1200 in "search fees" -- sometimes even when I know there's little in the file other than my own letters!  I know many other people in the same predicament.  And I'm always crashing closed meetings; once, a Boston Redevelopment Authority staff threatened to cancel a by-invitation community meeting -- to which the community people had specifically invited me -- if I didn't leave.  She knew I'd expose the BRA's community-scam if I stayed.

I'm sure a lot of community sites will be happy to link to yours!

You could call it "sunshineboston.org".  That name is not being used (I'm not surprised...).

Suggested posts:

• Massachusetts Open Meeting Law
• Massachusetts Public Record Law
• Federal Freedom of Information Act (if you want to make the site broader than state and local access)
• Mass. Attorney General Guidelines for interpreting OML and any similar government documents
• Pending legislation for reform of Laws (there are several bills languishing in committee)
• Action opportunities: hearings, filing deadlines, rallies, letters of support to legislators, letters of complaint to City
• Contacts:  e.g., Supervisor of Public Records, Attorney General, District Attorney,
• Attorneys experienced in this issue
• Library of, or links to, legal cases
• Library of, or links to, other states' and cities' sunshine laws (San Francisco has its own Sunshine Ordinance!) and maybe other countries, too.
• Newspaper and other media stories -- an archive and daily updates from you and web visitors
• Bibliography of references on transparency issues and laws (I have a great book on cases from all over the country)
• Links to related websites
• Suggestions and support for establishing a state digital archive (already exists in some states, and already proposed by our Supervisor of Public Records but resisted by agencies and politicians) and automatic archiving of all state public records as they are produced -- and posting without charge
• Auto-archive also on city level.
• Click-on petitions for e.g., transcription of taped meetings, recording of unrecorded meetings (e.g., BRA), making state legislature subject to Open Meeting and Public Record Laws (they are exempt!!), etc.
• A blog, where people can talk to others with similar problems, discuss the issues, and help each other.
  

We need to educate people about what they are entitled to, and mobilize public pressure to get it.  It's unacceptable that we have to pay to get our own documents, and fight to get into meetings by our own public officials.  Without transparency, we have no accountability, and no democracy.  

Let me know how I can help, and I hope the people on these two list-serves will respond to you, and forward your message to others.  I will forward to my Alliance of Boston Neighborhoods e-mail list, too.

I have some material you can post, and I'm sure among the people I'm copying, there's lots more.  This is a big issue.

Shirley Kressel

From: Don Saklad <dsa...@zurich.csail.mit.edu>
To: shirley...@verizon.net

I'm developing a website explaining how to get information from city hall,
FOI freedom of information principles, sunshine open public meetings
principles, intellectual freedom principles, open government principles,
people, organizations and agencies that will help others with delays and
denials in attempting to ask for public information from city hall.

We have to keep pressing on for access to read public information and access
to publc meetings and without having to pay for access or appeal.

Officials fail to object that it is routine that people are deflected at
city hall.

[Don Saklad]

> . Bibliography of references on transparency issues and

> laws (I have a great book on cases from all over the
> country)

Please send title, author, publisher, year, et al