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Three billboards have popped up around Gloucester County in New Jersey attacking the .

The freeholders believe the billboards are politically motivated. The county Republicans are seen as the main suspects, as they are vocal about transparency. But they deny any affiliation. “This is not something that the Republican organization did,” said party chairman Bill Fey. “(Although), it’s certainly in line with our message.”

The billboards do not mention the sponsors of the messages. The billboard company is respecting the wishes of the client to remain anonymous.

One of the signs has “Embarrassing” in red capital letters printed on it. Below that, it reads in black print, “ Freeholders need a babysitter.”

A Superior Court judge recently found Gloucester County in violation of the Open Public Meetings Act and ordered the board to hire a court-appointed monitor to oversee them, which is the referenced “babysitter.”

To prevent this from happening to you, or to make sure your local government isn’t deserving of similar measures, read the following links on Sunshine Review:

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wrote an excellent piece today about how the cialis levitra broke the salary scandal. It turns out that we have another city’s ineptness to thank for it. , which had just terminated all their public employees in order to settle their financial troubles, was looking to outsource their police force to Bell.

When cialis levitra reporter followed up on the story he heard a rumor that Bell’s salaries were being investigated and took it from there, alternating between requesting the information and threatening the city officials with legal action.

However, when I saw this quote it drove home how helpless many Americans feel:

“As a common citizen, I don’t know what my rights are with the city. I don’t know really how to attack them,” Miguel Sanchez, a 33-year-old special education teacher’s aide said. “The Times, they have their legal departments. Of course, they’re able to get it more than a regular Joe like me.”

Organizations like exist to be the average Joe’s legal department. There are transparency organizations out there to help keep more Bell’s from happening, and citizens need to know that.

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Today is , and what a better way to celebrate than to highlight a story about the Freedom of Information Act.

In Maryland, former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), who is hoping to unseat Governor (D) in November obtained e-mails from the governor’s administration through a public records request. The e-mails detail a recent flub where the administration accidentally made public an on the economy.

One of the e-mails from an O’Malley staffer read: “The theme of the discussion was quite clear that we would emphasize private sector job growth as progressing . . . at no time did we remotely discuss messaging that the economic recovery had stalled.”

The administration is taking the position that the report did not contain any sort of conclusion, but was rather a part of internal conversation. Regardless, the posting of the report was clearly a mistake.

Still, perhaps it oughtn’t be seen that way. People do, after all, have a right to know about important economic data and be free to interpret it. The O’Malley could have seen this as an opportunity to gain the public’s trust by posting a potentially scandalous report with bad news. It would be nice if governments served as information providers and not just as spin machines.

The interesting part of this story is the insight that the requested e-mails bring. The report posted was prepared by Mary Jo Yeisley, a supervisor in DLLR’s Office of Workforce Information and Performance. Yeisley began her report with a line that later appeared verbatim when the report was posted online. “Amid reports of uncertainties in financial markets, declining consumer confidence and spending and lackluster hiring at the national level, Maryland’s economic recovery faltered in July.” In a follow-up e-mail, she predicted those numbers would only get worse.

All of this internal dialogue is brought to you by the .

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“International Right to Know” day is tomorrow, and according to there is only one conference going on in America to celebrate it. FYI, it’s at the to discuss the

I think we can do better then that. What better way to celebrate our right to know than submitting a FOIA request? I plan on submitting one tomorrow, and I hope that you’ll join me. If you have any questions, here is a list of the for every state. Let us know what you are thinking of requesting in the comments.

I’ll start: Going to ask for copies of Mayor Daley’s e-mails for the past 30 days.

Side note: I’m requesting the info in my own time, separate from my work at Sunshine Review.

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The second volume of the is now out, and free for all to read. The journal features articles about transparency and open government under three categories: invited papers, scientific research papers, and case studies.

I’ve written before about how . It’s still a happy surprise that it has gotten there so soon. The Journal of eDemocracy’s second issue of the second volume has a lot of internationally-focused, gov 2.0 issues, but there are articles relevant to state and local transparency.

For example, “” by Cyril Velikanov is about how communities can use mass online deliberation to resolve conflict. Governments can take a page from this sort of research to understand how they can incorporate online methods to interact with their citizens.

“” by Ben Li looks at the variable of making processes “e”–that is, electronic. He finds that whether or not something is “e” has little to do with whether it serves to promote democratic outcomes. This is also applicable to local governments: going online and embracing gov 2.0 isn’t all there is to open government.

I look forward to reading more issues of the Journal of eDemocracy. Let us know what articles you find useful.

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earned an overall “D” transparency grade for information available on their websites according to an analysis conducted by Sunshine Review, a pro-transparency group.

Sunshine Review employs a “10 Point Transparency Checklist” to assess state and local government websites on proactive disclosure of government information. The checklist measures content available on government websites against what should be provided. Checklist items include information about budgets, meetings, elected and administrative officials, background checks, audits, contracts, academic performance, public records, and taxes.

School districts and earned perfect transparency scores. However, school districts overwhelmingly failed the transparency test, with 40 of the 75 earning an “F.” Many of the school districts failed to post financial information, scoring badly on audits, contracts, and budgets.

Wayne Hoffman, the Executive Director of the , was not surprised by the school districts’ poor performance.

“Unfortunately, the results are not surprising. For too many school districts, government transparency is little more than an afterthought. In other school districts, transparency is an inconvenience. The districts that do the job well recognize how important government transparency is. It’s our hope that all Idaho school districts come to recognize that transparency is a basic and core function of government, and without it, taxpayers have every right to be suspicious of how well their money is being spent,” said Hoffman.

Despite the dismal scores reported, transparency in the school districts will be increasing later this year thanks to a bill which will require any school districts with over 300 students to .

The President of Sunshine Review Michael Barnhart believes that proactively disclosing spending will have a positive impact on Idaho’s schools performance.

“It is crucial for parents and taxpayers to have access to complete information about how school districts operate,” said Barnhart.

Sunshine Review is a non-profit organization dedicated to state and local government transparency. Sunshine Review collaborates with individuals and organizations throughout America in the cause of an informed citizenry and a transparent government. Since its inception in 2008, Sunshine Review has analyzed the websites of all 50 states, more than 3,140 counties, 805 cities, and 1,560 school districts.

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A recent editorial praises Wisconsin for its open government–in particular, the attitude of of .

The author of the piece notes that the Attorney General Van Hollen has actively worked to improve citizen access to and .

He has the right attitude towards open government, too, writing “A citizen’s access to public records and meetings of governmental bodies is a vital aspect of this principle [of 'government of the people, by the people, for the people…'].” The hosts a video of the DOJ’s 2009 public records seminar, and the DOJ is offering a series of free seminars and video conferences to promote public awareness of and compliance with Wisconsin’s open meetings and public records laws. (These can be found .)

According to Sunshine Review, the state of Wisconsin does extremely well on the material it discloses online. We give an “A+” transparency grade, which means it posts all of the items we recommend on our 10 point transparency checklist. At the local level, however, Wisconsin counties only get a “D” transparency grade average.

What are your experiences with transparency in Wisconsin?

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has just over 6,000 people in their small town, but it’s leading the way for open data, social media and a more open government. Yesterday and today Manor has teamed up with to bring these ideals to other local governments around the nation. The conference is discussing:

• Open Government
• Citizen Engagement
• Citizen Service & 311
• Web & Mobile Technology
• Emergency Management
• Social Media
• Open Data

And even if you can’t afford to hop on a flight and catch the last panels for this conference, you can join me in listening to them live on , or follow on twitter with . I’ve already heard some great great ideas, so I highly recommend watching.

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One interesting phenomena is candidates for public office trying to out-transparency the other guy. New York state attorney general candidates Daniel Donovan (R) and Eric Schneiderman (D) are doing just that. Donovan is proposing transparency in spending, and Schneiderman is calling him out for weak promises.

According to Staten Island Real-Time News, Donovan for “taxpayer-funded member item allocations, which make up for $170 million in lawmaker spending on special projects.” Donovan, currently the Staten Island District Attorney, proposes requiring lawmakers to provide documentation proving no conflict of interest in order to limit the funneling of money towards pet projects and organizations they were already involved with.

“New Yorkers should have every faith that their tax dollars are being allocated to not-for-profit organizations that are providing critical services in our communities, not to organizations being used as the personal piggy bank for politicians who have long forgotten who they were elected to serve.”

This would seemingly include transparency in membership to . These associations are generally nonprofits and they lobby on behalf of their members, which are public officials. Public officials either use money from their public offices or their governments to cover the cost of membership in these associations and, in return, disclose little about the activities and costs of membership. So while taxpayers are funding the projects of these groups, we have little say in whether we approve or not.

Donovan’s Democratic opponent Eric Schneiderman responded:

“It’s nice to see Republican Dan Donovan finally take an interest in reform issues for the first time now that he’s running for office. But Eric Schneiderman has been a leading reformer for years, leading the charge to expel a corrupt senator for the first time in history, and writing the most sweeping ethics reform legislation in a generation.”

If only upping the ante on transparency were this popular all the time. Speaking of transparency, check out State Budget Solutions’ take on it here: . (Hint: There’s government transparency, and then there’s Caspar-the-Ghost transparency.)

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Senator is backing legislation that would put every state and local check online. The would require transparency from municipal, county, state, and school officials and varies from coordination with the state treasurer to posting every check online.

“Fifty years from now that we even had to legislate something like this,” he said. “It’s such an affordable, common-sense program that will easily provide information that can be accessed from homes, libraries and businesses. It is long past time that we listen to taxpayers who are demanding that Trenton be accountable.”

The bill was already passed in the senate, and now needs approval from the general assembly.