Happy Independence Day, everyone!
The N&O’s Triangle Politics column writes up JLF’s N.C. Transparency Initiative by noting that officials in Apex seem a bit nonplussed they got a “D.”
Town Manager Bruce Radford said the documents would have been made available to the organization had it asked for them.
“We
run quite a transparent operation,” Radford assured Triangle Politics.
“We’d be happy to give that information to anybody who came today. …
To my knowledge, we have never denied a request for any public
information.”Well, at least not since last month.
Town
officials, including Radford, sat on public planning documents related
to a massive real-estate project that could add 20,000 residents and
more than double the town’s tax base — despite e-mail, telephone and
in-person requests for the documents under the Freedom of Information
Act.Apex finally released the
documents, several days after they were submitted, and a couple of
hours after town officials hosted a back-slapping news conference with
the developer.
A big goal of the Transparency Initiative is to push government agencies to make information available online, on demand, to anybody who’s interested in it; given current technology, citizens shouldn’t have to ask “Mother, may I?” to get the most basic public documents.
Looks as if the transparency site is already holding some folks accountable (or, at a minimum, making them uncomfortable).
