Sunshine Review

David Cameron in Britain on transparency

David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party in Britain and the Leader of the Opposition Party in the House of Commons, has been talking about transparency recently. In a speech at the University of East London, Cameron expressed a very negative view of lobbying. The Conservative leader said that the “£2 billion industry” is too significant... [Read more of this review]

Poll Says Local Officials Interested In Transparency

A recent survey of National League of Cities (NLC) and Public Technology Institute (PTI) members discovered that using technology to promote municipal government transparency is a leading interest to local officials. According to the NLC, members highlighted five subjects elected officials need more information about: • Technologies that promote... [Read more of this review]

Caddo Parish upgrades county website

Caddo Parish, Louisiana has upgraded their website to meet 8 out of 10 of Sunshine Review’s transparency checklist items. What does this mean for Caddo Parish? Well, for the Parish it means their transparency grade was boosted from a measly C to a much better B. More importantly, it means that constituents in Caddo Parish now have access to... [Read more of this review]

Transparency claims victim in primary race

Todd Stroger, former Cook County Board President in Illinois, lost his seat in the state primary elections on Tuesday. There are probably several reasons why, but one thing is for sure: his transparency record was spotty. On January 28, a week before the primaries, Todd Stroger’s focus on transparency took the form of a promise to release his... [Read more of this review]

Australian Federal Government launches website comparing all schools

Australia’s Federal Government launched “My School” to compare enrollment, academic performance, number of teachers and attendance ratings. The website has had a fair amount of controversy, either form bad websites to angry school districts. I believe that Australia took an important step toward disclosing data to parents, one I... [Read more of this review]

Transparency Key to Fixing State Budget Crises

Millions of average Americans made history in 2009 by launching a non-partisan burst of activism demanding more accountability from Washington and more transparency about Wall Street bailouts, stimulus spending and health care reform. In 2010 and beyond, that same energy is urgently needed closer to home. State and local governments across America are... [Read more of this review]

“Privacy” as information blocking: Howell schools and union e-mails

Chetly Zarko, a Michigan citizen, filed a Michigan Freedom of Information Act request in 2007 asking for thousands of Howell teacher e-mails in order to investigate the occurence of taxpayer-funded lobbying. The Michigan Court of Appeals determined in January that the messages are not public records under the state Freedom of Information Act, overturning... [Read more of this review]

When bad politicians go transparent

After being convicted for embezzlement in late 2009, Balitmore’s Mayor Sheila Dixon has sponsored a great transparency website for payments made to city vendors. It will address payments made by 51 city agencies and offices and will be updated every 45 days. Usability of the site will include searching by City agency to view payments authorized... [Read more of this review]

Transparency goes big-time

A google news search for “transparency” in the past week gets more than 24,500 results. About 5000 of these are comprised of “ Read More →

State of the Union: Cloudy with a chance of Sunshine

President Obama had his first State of the Union address last night, and gave a brief shout out to transparency. And by “shout out,” I mean apology. Reason Blog’s Jacob Sullum put it better than I could have, saying: Yesterday I noted that President Obama, in an interview with ABC news anchor Diane Sawyer, had acknowledged his failure... [Read more of this review]

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