Help! Need CfDC'ers Support in Preserving the Independence of DC's Office of Open Gov

[Sandra Moscoso-Mills]

Dear Code for DC Community,

Tomorrow, DC Council will vote on the Budget Support Act (FY 2019 budget) and w/in the act, an amendment to restructure the Board of Ethics and Government Accountability (BEGA) and its relationship with the DC Office of Open Government (OOG). The amendment takes away OOG's independence of BEGA. 

OOG needs this independence to remain intact, so as to be able to continue to support citizens and DC agencies in pursuing/complying with FOIA requests and in supporting DC boards and commissions in complying with the Open Meetings Act. BEGA members are appointed by the Mayor. BEGA hires the Director of the OOG. Already, there's very little protection for the independence of the OOG. The proposed amendment takes away the OOG's independence from BEGA and will make it difficult to ensure the OOG can continue to support our access to information. 

Thomas Susman, president of the DC Open Government Coalition, articulates the risks well here: https://www.dcogc.org/content/susman-opposes-budget-act-begaoog-amendments

The proposed changes to the act are attached to this (less articulate) post by me https://www.dcogc.org/content/bega-amendment-will-hinder-public-education-advocacy

Please consider reaching out to Councilmember Charles Allen (Chair of the Judiciary and Public Safety Committee - which has oversight over BEGA), and Council Chair Phil Mendelson with the following asks:

• Please protect the independence of the Office of Open Government. 
  
• Please remove the "“BEGA Amendment Act of 2018” from consideration in tomorrow's vote. 
  
• Please give the public an opportunity to discuss the BEGA Amendment Act of 2018 and offer alternate solutions to preserving the independence of the OOG. (For example, support CM Che and CM Grosso's Strengthening Government Transparency Act of 2017 https://www.billtrack50.com/BillDetail/858677)

Thank you in advance. An independent OOG supports our ability to access the very data that fuels our Code for DC work. Please consider helping to preserve this.

Contact Info:

Charles Allen: cal...@dccouncil.us

Phil Mendelson: pmend...@dccouncil.us

Mary Che: mc...@dccouncil.us

David Grosso: dgr...@dccouncil.us

Anita Bonds: abo...@dccouncil.us

Elissa Silverman: esilv...@dccouncil.us

Robert White: rwh...@dccouncil.us

Brianne Nandeau: bnan...@dccouncil.us

Jack Evans: jev...@dccouncil.us

Brandon Todd: bt...@dccouncil.us

Kenyan McDuffie: kmcd...@dccouncil.us

Vincent Gray: vg...@dccouncil.us

Trayon White: twh...@dccouncil.us

Thank you!

Sandra Moscoso

(DC Mom, Ward 6 Resident, Open Data / Open Gov supporter, Civic Tech Cheerleader)

[Sandra Moscoso-Mills]

All - 

Councilmember Allen kindly reached out yesterday to talk through the ‘BEGA Amendment Act of 2018’. 

He raised good points I hadn’t considered, including (in my words):

1) Currently, the Office of Open Government (OOG) doesn’t have a clear accountability model, so while we were lucky that the first Director of Open Government (Traci Hughes) was effective in applying the letter of the law to decisions/opinions, in a situation where the OOG is not open government friendly, this independence could backfire

2) BEGA board members are Mayoral appointees and currently, there are no clear qualifications they must meet vis a vis open government expertise. The proposed amendment addresses this to ensure there is at least one member on the board with expertise/background in government transparency.

The imperfect situation is that for with the amendment, for the short-term, we’ll have in place a BEGA appointed by the Mayor (who have not demonstrated vision or support for open gov), a director of OOG hired by BEGA, and now an OOG accountable to BEGA. 

I would still hope for a broader conversation about this, beyond the good folks in the open gov community. The risk of keeping the status quo is losing appetite from Council to revisit BEGA/OOG structure. However, I think it’s safe to say the broader conversation would help to counter this risk.

I don’t want to put words in Councilmember Allen’s mouth, so am adding his response to folks who reached out directly about this issue.

“Thanks so much for the note. I wanted to send more details to try make sure it's clear what's being proposed. And as someone who has previously added language to strengthen the Office of Open Government, as well as increase their funding, I definitely take open gov, open data, and FOIA very seriously. Nothing in what is proposed seeks to compromise that - nor does it close data from the public.

Currently, OOG is in an unsustainable structural position. It's something that's been discussed for the last two years in hearings and oversight. It's essentially an independent agency inside an independent agency - the Board of Ethics and Government Accountability (BEGA). The way it's structured, the OOG Director is appointed/hired by BEGA, but then doesn't report to them or is able to be held accountable (even to review performance). This may work for open government and transparency interests when their work aligns, but it won't if there's a Director that doesn't align with the goals of most open gov advocates. Or if their opinions and actions need review. 

So what the amendment does is have OOG report to the Board (not to the Mayor) alongside the Office of Government Ethics. Like all Boards, the members are appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by the Council. So if we have problems with the Board's actions, then we need to focus on "who" is on the Board and what skills they bring. That's also why we're putting new qualification requirements on the Board so they start to have expertise in these areas. The amendment also does not change FOIA or how it operates in the District. OOG currently has the ability to make binding decisions on Open Government issues and advisory opinions on FOIA. That won't change with this amendment. “

Thank you to everyone who has engaged. Open Government is not easy, but we need it in place so we can have the resources to advocate for the causes we care about!

Thank you to Councilmember Allen and his team for their responsiveness and openness.

Sandra

(DC Mom, Ward 6 Resident, Open Data / Open Gov supporter, Civic Tech Cheerleader)

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From: Sandra Moscoso-Mills <smosco...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2018 11:09 AM
To: Code For Dc
Subject: Help! Need CfDC'ers Support in Preserving the Independence of DC's Office of Open Gov