An eye-opening public records request for a former Charlotte City Council member
Transparency has suffered greatly in local government this year. The Mecklenburg Board of Commissioners effectively voted on a budget via email. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg School Board withheld information about the departing superintendent. City Council members’ expenditures came under fire.
Some elected officials believe certain work is best achieved behind closed doors. The public does not. The equalizer is the ability for the press or citizens to request meeting minutes, emails and texts involving public officials or staff members. Nothing, however, requires government to provide that information quickly. This needs to change.
While on City Council, I regularly had to turn over emails to the city attorney’s office to comply with public records requests. As a private citizen on the other side, I see the flaws in the current system. Recently, I made a public records request with the city involving a parking dispute within my neighborhood, requesting all email correspondence between the Charlotte Department of Transportation and City Council regarding the issue.
The City Clerk’s office has created a simple process to file a Public Records Request online. After the request is made, the city promptly sends an email acknowledging receipt of the request. But following the initial contact, the request seemed to disappear into space, with no updates and no required timetable for compliance. It’s been more than a month, and I’ve still received nothing more than an acknowledgment my request has been received.
All local elected bodies should take steps to create a more transparent system. My recommendation is two-fold: First, commit to a complete turnover of requested records from a Public Records Request within 30 days. If the request is too broad, respond within 15 days and ask to narrow the focus. Once the request is resubmitted, the 30-day clock begins ticking again.
The argument against this proposal is that government doesn’t have the resources to comply. Easy fix. Hire the appropriate number of staff members needed to fulfill requests. There have been 919 requests made to the city this year. While this may sound like a large number, it is not unmanageable if city officials are committed to transparency. Unfortunately, I have seen first-hand how the government can slow play a request officials believe will shed negative light on the organization.
Second, local government should have all expenses in a searchable online database. The city recently unveiled a public dashboard that will track capital expenditures. I applaud this effort, but it needs to go further. Anytime an employee cuts a check or swipes a credit card, the expenses should be logged into the database. Implementing this measure is as simple as acquiring the appropriate software. Taxpayers deserve to readily access how government is spending our money. For example, a member of City Council visited friends and family twice in California after conveniently finding a need to travel there on “city business.” We should not have to wait until the annual expense release to learn about it.
Faith in as government is at an all-time low, yet government takes no steps to change. The people create change. Call your elected officials and tell them to create an open records policy that ensures full transparency. If we had near real-time disclosures it would encourage government to be more open, and thus accountable to the public. The millennial City Council members promised more transparency when they were sworn in in 2017. Here is their chance to deliver.
This story was originally published November 12, 2019 at 1:58 PM.