Transparency & Disclosure

The Internet provides all sorts of opportunities for both transparency and citizen feedback. One way, which I pointed out recently, is for local government officials to have blogs that allow them to present their news and views, and allow citizens to respond and ask questions.

Two other approaches have just been taken by towns near where I live.

Click here to read the rest of this blog entry.

Once again, California is in the vanguard.  This time, it's blogs by mayors, city managers, and other local government officials (for list, click here; not all of these are government officials' blogs, but many are and it's not hard to tell them apart).

Elizabeth Wolgast’s 1992 book, Ethics of an Artificial Person: Lost Responsibility in Professions and Organizations, raises some very important government ethics questions. I will deal with just one of them here. The term “artificial persons” includes lawyers and government officials who are considered to act in the name of others. Wolgast’s book looks at the problems such artificial persons cause with respect to our ordinary views of such ethical issues as responsibility and accountability. Too often, Wolgast says, lawyers and government officials hide behind their roles.

City Ethics’ very own Carla Miller (also the Jacksonville Ethics Officer) is in the news this week with an important municipal ethics dispute.

New York politicians are making life hard for ethical politicians. “Present yourself as ethical,” they are effectively telling them, “and everyone will be harder on you when you don’t live up to expectations.

An essential problem in many local governments is a lack of transparency. When people do not know what is happening, and access to information is very difficult, democracy is undermined in several ways. Reformers have a difficult time showing what is actually happening or preparing for public meetings and public hearings. Newspapers are dependent on what officials say. Ordinary citizens become indifferent or completely turned off when all news is of the he said-she said variety. Where there is little transparency, there is usually a reason to keep things hidden.

Published on CityEthics.org (http://www.cityethics.org) A Cure for Transparency Problems: A Model Website and Blog By Robert Wechsler Created 2008-03-24 10:38 An essential problem in many local governments is a lack of transparency. When people do not know what is happening, and access to information is very difficult, democracy is undermined in several ways. Reformers have a difficult time showing what is actually happening or preparing for public meetings and public hearings. Newspapers are dependent on what officials say.

Transparency is often seen as a technical, often annoying part of municipal ethics. All those notices and agendas that have to be filed at the right time in the right place, all those document requests from the news media and opposition parties. Is all this really necessary for good government? Does it lower taxes, provide better services? Or is it just a pain in the neck? Sometimes you need a big disaster – Enron, for example – for people to understand the cost of not acting ethically. Well, we’ve just had another disaster, and once again transparency is at the center of it.

Transparency is one of the most important elements of government ethics. And yet government ethics itself is often kept secret. Respect for the privacy of those investigated is given preference over the rights of residents to know what is going on. Ethics commissions often do not file annual reports and, when they are required to, the reports are rarely placed on a city's website.