HB619: Erosion and sediment control; may assess civil penalty.
This has just passed the House and as with the Health Care bill, has been defanged there (although maybe not as badly as the Health Care bill). Now, it is up to the Senate. (more…)
It doesn’t seem to be available in print/pdf format yet but the summary provided indicates this bill HB1386 would make it possible for constitutional amendments (State of Virginia) would be posted on a website and NOT in detail in newspapers. (more…)
It is easy to blame Wall Street for all our financial woes. But what did they really do? They violated trust. People trusted those businesses to ‘do the right thing’ … people trusted them so much that they gave up a lot of control and power to them and just let them (big financial institutions) take care of things. (more…)
The primary reason why I started hosting depotdazed on a private site along with this one is that the private site allows me to add a lot of nice features that cannot be available here. I just added a few new ones:)
You will now find RSS feeds offered by the RichmondSunlight which is a site that tracks legislative activity. At http://www.myvaresources.com/blogs/depotdazed, you can now find 4 new features:
One of the first things I noted was as comment: Kathleen SB1065. Following the links on that brought me to where I found that the bill was to prevent Associations from restricting people from saving energy by utilizing wind driven drying devices …..CLOTHESLINES. Del. Nutter voted against the bill, Del. Shuler voted for it.
Home all those Associations feel safe knowing that they will not have to tolerate some neighbor hanging bloomers in their backyards! Oh…my…gawd….this was just too much. I can see I am going to be spending a lot of time looking at what elected officials are doing here.
The League of Women Voters of Virginia has a great website set up where you can get information on candidates throughout the state at state, regional, and local levels. Please take a few minutes to check it out.
When you go in to cast your vote, you are affecting:
And, the list goes on for a long, long time. Your vote is important because the outcome of elections will have a long term effect on your quality of life, your financial resources, your community, and your state.
Please take the time to go vote on November 3rd. And remember that a vote to move the elections to November in Christiansburg will mean a saving of approximately $5000/election (at the minimum, that could double in the next couple of years). Could you think of a better use for that money? Maybe a local farmer’s market? Maybe to apply to the Aquatic Center interest payments? Maybe host another baseball or basketball tournament to bring more business in to the community? Maybe help support the Library or the Free Clinic? Maybe to use as the ‘matching funds’ to help develop sidewalk-trail systems that actually connect with something? Think about it!
YOUR VOTE IS YOUR VOICE! USE IT! DON’T REMAIN SILENT!
Wondering how elected officials in Virginia voted to help you decide how to vote in November? Use case.
I just did a google search on Virginia delegate voting records and the second site on the list was:
***Note the part I put in italics: “Cat Hair Loss Hock….” This was my first indication that something was not quite right! Read before you click. If it looks like things are not quite right, then don’t click on it. I mean what has cat hair, fetal dead, and body hair got to do with Delegate voting records.
Also note the link listed at the bottom….who ever heard of brendenstickel as an entrance page to a Virginia site? I beefed up my security and clicked:If you click on that link you are taken to a site that is related to something called searchand protect.net. You will immediately get noticed that your computer has a serious virus problem and is immediate danger.
The authors of the webpage have designed webpages that look almost identical to the Windows security page warning you would see if you have an actual problem. You will be prompted to continue by clicking buttons in order to save your computer.
DON”T DO IT!!!! I stayed only long enough to verify that this was a simulation of the security prompts before I hightailed it out of there.
I can’t believe that ANYONE would use something as important as voting records in this manner. Whoever is doing this needs to go to jail for a very, very long time!
Watch yourself when surfing the web. Take the time to look and if anything comes up looking funny. Get out of the site as quickly as possible WITHOUT clicking on anything within that site!
Why would people want to know about their government and the decisions that are made by government for them? The answer to that has nothing to do with the FOIA. Rather, the FOIA is something that may have been strongly influenced by the very drive that people have to want to know the answers to questions that they have.
Think about it for a minute. How many times would you return to a doctor who’s responses were “Yes, you are sick but I have some medicine to make you better.” Me, I would have a few little questions to ask: (1) If I’m sick, what is the ’sickness’ called? (2) Is it a terminal, chronic, or short term illness? (3) Are the symptoms I have now likely to get better or worse? Will I get new symptoms also? (4) What is the prognosis? (5) This medicine you want to give me, how will it affect me? (6) Are there any other treatment options?
When you talk to your doctor, you know that you are talking about things that have a direct effect upon your life and your family. You, quite naturally, want to know a reasonable amount of what the issues are so that you can begin wrapping your brain around how to deal with things. Well, when you talk to government representatives (elected, appointed, or otherwise) about government issues in your area (city, town, county, or country), you are also talking about things that will have an impact upon your life and the lives of your family, friends, neighbors, and other citizens you do not even know.
It only makes sense to me that asking for all the information that you need to feel comfortable with what is going to happen should be a right that you exercise often. In a May 20, 2009 article on the New York Times Opinion Section, Happy Days, The Pursuit of What Matters in Troubled Times, is an blog article by Daniel Gilbert, What You Don’t Know Makes You Nervous.
The author discusses some of the current issues facing Americans and some historical eras that are similar to what is faced today. Then, he moves into addressing what it is that people are ‘really’ upset about. In paragraph 8 of the blog article, he begins to identify the real culprit:
Then in the last paragraph, he sums up this theme again:
This ‘not knowing’ or ‘uncertainty’ can exist in all levels of government. The less people are told, the more they are likely to worry about the possible outcomes. We Americans are a pretty tough group. We have survived bad times, tough economic times, war, internal strife, disease, floods, hurricanes, volcanoes, earthquakes, the untimely loss of some of most beloved citizens, and a myriad of other challenges. I believe we can survive most anything IF WE KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT!
I understand it is not possible for government to give us clear and concise answers on every issue. Where it is possible to do so, then it should be done. Where it is not possible, then simply be honest enough to say that you do not know, but this is what we are doing about the issue.
Keeping people informed helps to keep people grounded in facts NOT in perceptions that may not accurately reflect the facts. Most of us know that elected officials are just as human as the rest of us and can make mistakes. Acknowledging and owning the mistakes allows all of the gossip and rumors to die off and we can all get on with the business of living our lives to the best of our ability.
Most people that know me know that if I am given a few minutes, I could apply Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to eating a tuna fish salad. I am a firm believer in that Hierarchy and the relationship to was I have just discussed is clear.
In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, there are established levels of ‘Needs’ that most people have in common. These needs begin at a very basic survival level and progress into the very alturistic. The government (whether town, city, county, state, our federal) is directed by the U.S. Constitution to insure certain of these needs: Health, Welfare, Safety & Convenience. (See Wikipedia’s: Supreme Court Case Mugler V. Kansas, 123 U.S. 623 (1887)). (See also: Health, Safety, Welfare & Convenience.)
Citizens not only have a right to know, but it is good for them to know, the good and bad of government. Not knowing leads to uncertainty and fear. Those, in turn, lead to misperceptions, rumors, gossip, and misinterpretations. The more open government is the more likely it will be that citizens will come together and strive to work through any problems that we have. Open government IS good government because it reduces the fear and uncertainty.
Happy Birthday to the Freedom of Information Act! As it has grown, it has now become a tool for everyone, not just the media. FOIA helps to keep government open in much the same way putting a lock on a door protects your home. It serves to keep honest people honest. Just as there will be those who will break into your home regardless of the presence of locks, there will be those who will try to keep things ‘hidden’ from the public. Having some safeguards in place (lock on the door, the FOIA) helps to prevent that scenario from becoming the status quo.
June 30th Bacon’s Rebellion Blog article “Establishing Transparency’s Bottom Floor for Virginia’s Localities” is a good followup on the THOMAS JEFFERSON INSTITUTE’S TRANSPARENCY PROJECT. It brings home the fact that the internet has provided a wealth of opportunity for citizen involvement and for governments to be open and empowering of citizens. The internet has opened doors for people to be involved in government in ways that were not dreamed of only a few years ago. Suddenly, access is available to more people, limited only by governments’ efforts to provide the information.
However, there are tremendous differences between how jurisdictions handle this new era of ‘openness’. I have been looking at various websites around the State of Virginia for more than a year now. Some jurisdictions make it incredibly easy for information to be found. Other jurisdictions make finding some information easy and other information more difficult to locate. Still others, offer a lot of self-promotion to encourage the home buyer or business, but the ‘meat and potatoes’ of local government is all but missing in action.
I believe that the last paragraph of that blog clearly identifies some of the opportunities that are before us and within the hands of our lawmakers:
“If all of Virginia’s counties and school boards met these standards we would be a much more informed and aware citizenry, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Simply following through on these measures, while a significant upgrade over the hodge-podge collection of documents that passes for transparency throughout much of the commonwealth, doesn’t take full advantage of power of the internet. There are a lot of additional things that governments can do that enable their citizens to get much more out of online transparency. From video archives to real time data feeds, innovative governments are making themselves more open and their constituents better informed. Next issue we’ll take a look at what the best practices in this new online world look like.
I am looking forward to that next issue. I have some ideas of my own, first and foremost, that standards should be established for all jurisdictions (state, county, city & TOWN) and that those standards should be developed based, in large part, upon citizen input. Let the people who will be using the devices have a part in determining what is needed, not just the lawmakers. Find out what people want. Oh, yeah. That’s what government is all about anyway, right?
There’s a kewl blog out there that I read called “Bacon’s Rebellion“. There have been a couple of recent blog articles there that relate to my FOIA focus. (It’s not long before the 4th of July, FOIA’s birthday, will arrive and I will be back on topics of local interest….anybody wondering what my I’ve been working on besides FOIA information:)
Anyway, on June 16, 2009, the blog article “Shining a Spotlight on Transparency” was rolled out. I had to check my audio to be sure I didn’t miss a drum roll because it sure deserved one! The opening two sentences set the tone: The legitimacy of government is based on the consent of the governed. As owners of our state government, every citizen of Virginia is entitled to full and complete information about how their government acts and what their Representatives do.”
Wow! That pretty much says it for the backbone of the FOIA at all government levels. WE are the government. Government is not just elected officials and fancy buildings! It is “WE THE PEOPLE”. The government works for us, not the other way around.
The article then goes on to discuss recent events in Federal FOIA and Virginia FOIA. I really like the way that it is pointed out that accessibility to information alone is NOT enough. That information MUST be in a format that citizens can understand. We do not need tools that we can’t use. We need consistently organized, understandable information. Clothing information (or cloaking, if you prefer) in a manner that make it available but not useable is atrocious.
It is further noted, that the THOMAS JEFFERSON INSTITUTE is initiating an awesome project. They will examine the current FOIA practices of jurisdictions and use that data to develop standards and best practices. This concept could bring a degree of uniformity to jurisdictions that would be a tremendous service to citizens. I know that every jurisdiction wants to keep its “individuality” but there is no reason why they can’t do that while still having uniformity in those areas that all jurisdiction have in common. It’s too bad that the study will not include Towns, but perhaps that is coming.
This has particular interest to me as it could apply to the internet. If every jurisdiction used a certain part of their website that was consisten across all jurisdictions but allowed for independence in other parts of the website. It would make it so much easier for citizens. We are becoming such a mobile society, with people moving several times during the course of their lives. If there were some degree of uniformity, it would be so much easier for citizens to access information.
It could also save a ton of taxpayer’s money! Part of the website would be prepackaged saving development costs and making it easier for employees to use. The remainder of the website could be used as the jurisdiction wishes to promote its unique features and events. It would also make it easier and more cost effective for small jurisdictions to have a website.
The article closes with this: By providing usable data governments allow citizens to improve their quality of life and make government more efficient.” What a wonderful concept! Increase efficiency of government while improving citizen access. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.
The 2nd of these 2 articles will be discussed tomorrow.
Just a couple of years ago, I was pretty darned ignorant on the FOIA. I knew it was there. I had heard it mentioned somewhere along the way, but it had no real meaning for me. As I became interested, I started looking around on the internet. I really do not intend to ‘plug’ one resource over any others, but The Virginia Coalition for Open Government website and the help they provided via email and telephone, those have been the best resources for me.
The Coalition for Open Government is a non-profit agency dedicated to keeping government ‘openness’ growing. They do not sit back and assume that what is available is enough. They work to expand the parameters of openness, while simultaneously helping to empower citizens in making the current law work for them. They are also a 501c3 organization so any donations made are tax deductible.
If you have never made a FOIA request before, and would like someone to help you through the process, you will find all the resources that you need right here at the Virginia Coalition for Open Government website.
Rather than recreate the wheel, you can use their frequently asked questions (faq) section for some explainations and definitions in plain English (very little ‘legalize’ is used). On the page with the FOIA itself, there is even a copy of the form for carrying your request on to district court if need be (directions for filling it out are also there).
The FOI Citizen’s Guide is where I really got my start. This document pretty well takes you through the process of learning what your rights are under the FOIA. Basically, it provides information on what it is you are entitled to and how/when the government agency is required to respond. It also provides information on what your rights are as pertains to public meetings.
One of the links on their pages will take you to their bank of newsletters. You can find a lot of information. They work hard to provide you with information concerning recent FOIA related events, evaluations of the FOIA process, bills that may be coming up concerning FOIA, FOIA bills in the legislature, and some of the not-so-good things that have happened relative to FOIA.
CAMBRIA DEPOT MUSEUM