I’m interested in not only government information like spending, budgets, and contracts, but also in data the the government tracks that is public record but hard to obtain through FOIA requests: crime reports, car accident locations, building permits, zoning changes, restaurant health inspections, property values, home sales, etc.

I estimate that only 1 out of every 100,000 municipal datasets like this are available in any form online for citizens, leaving the average citizens no practical way to get at the information.

Let the sunshine in and let’s help the government make public information truly public.

Please see: http://www.votecracy.com

And thanks for the checklist. I’ll be using it to grade my local gov sites.

http://www.newsok.com/article/3409855?searched=starkey&custom_click=search

CLAREMORE — The Rogers County district attorney’s office Friday dismissed a domestic abuse charge against a Claremore man who gained statewide notoriety last year by successfully battling local judges over public access to courtrooms.

Rogers County District Attorney Gene Haynes said he reluctantly dismissed the abuse charge against David Starkey, 49, because the alleged victim stopped cooperating with prosecutors.

The woman first wrote out a statement describing how Starkey had allegedly battered her, Haynes said. He said the woman stuck to her story at the preliminary hearing but then stopped cooperating and began working with Starkey’s attorneys to try to defeat the case.

“It’s very common in domestic abuse cases for the victim to back out,” Haynes said.

Starkey, however, denied abusing the woman and charged his arrest was retaliation for operating a Web site, http://www.rogerscountygrandjury.com, where he has been pushing for a grand jury investigation of criminal justice abuses in the county.

He described the purported abuse victim as his common law wife and said they are now separated. Starkey said her injuries resulted from a fight she got into before she got home, which had witnesses, and a “panic attack gone awry.”

The woman has filed an Oklahoma Bar Association complaint against Assistant District Attorney Jenny Sanbrano, alleging the prosecutor threatened to have the state Department of Human Services take away her son if she didn’t testify the way prosecutors wanted, Starkey said.

“That’s nonsense,” Haynes said.

Starkey said he experienced abuse first hand in the way authorities handled his case.

“I had a tooth knocked out in the patrol car,” Starkey said, alleging he was roughed up even though he says he didn’t resist.

Starkey also said Claremore police officers destroyed a digital audio recorder he had running when they entered his home and then claimed they didn’t have any audio recordings from officers’ body microphones that could have documented the destruction.

Tom Kimble, one of Starkey’s attorneys, said there were at least five officers in the house and he found it “inconceivable” that none of them had their body microphones running.

Starkey said a district attorney’s investigator also gave court testimony inconsistent with a recording of a conversation the investigator had with a private investigator working for Starkey.

Starkey obtained a second preliminary hearing in his case after successfully protesting that a Rogers County judge had improperly excluded members of the public from the courtroom.

Haynes said the judge limited access because of the small size of the courtroom.

Prosecutors left open the possibility of refiling the criminal charge, but Haynes said he “seriously doubts” that will happen unless the alleged victim has a dramatic change in attitude.

Kimble said Starkey may file a civil lawsuit because of the way his case was handled.

Read more: http://www.newsok.com/article/3409855?searched=starkey&custom_click=search#ixzz0ULYRxQUt