NCCo Council shuts door on open government measure
April 29, 2009: "A proposal by one New Castle County Council member to post audio recordings of council meetings on the county Web site was voted down Tuesday, April 28.
Councilman David Tackett (D-Christiana), who sponsored the legislation, said he wanted to make the recordings available on the council's Web page in the spirit of being "open, accessible and accountable" to constituents.
Opponents, however, said having the recordings readily available could allow critics and political rivals to target them by taking their comments out of context." Read the full article here.
State House passes FOIA bill
March 20, 2009: "The state House has unanimously passed a measure aimed at opening General Assembly proceedings to the public.
House Bill 1 would subject meetings, including those of the Joint Finance, Bond Bill and Sunset committees, to the provisions of the state's Freedom of Information Act." Read the full article here.
Accessing records in Del. a snap – or a chore
March 16, 2009: "When it comes to Delaware's public records on the Internet, citizens' access can be a mouse click away -- or available only through a pricey subscription.
It depends on where you look.
Want to know about a chemical spill in a local stream? The Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control updates its Web site daily to show records of pollution releases, code violations and civil and criminal enforcement actions." Read the full article here.
House leaders want to amend FOIA already?
February 8, 2009: The concept of an open government – common elsewhere in the country – is apparently so foreign to Delaware lawmakers that they want to amend a proposed open-government bill to close public access to legislative correspondence. And this doesn’t come from one of the crusty legislators who’ve never operated in the open. It’s coming from the relatively new-to-Legislature Pete Schwartzkopf, the Democratic House majority leader who’s generally considered among the more progressive-minded politicians in Dover. Read the full editorial here.
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