Newspaper Articles About Massachusetts Common Cause's 2008 E-Government Awards

Congratulations to all the cities and towns that received the Common Cause Massachusetts 2008 E-Government award. The following links are to a number of articles about the awards published in local newspapers last week:

The Saugus Advertiser

The Patriot Ledger (South Shore towns of Duxbury, Hingham, Kingston, Plympton, Scituate, Sharon and Weymouth)

The Landmark(Holden Roundup)

The Westford Eagle

The Easton Journal and Enterprise

The Woburn Advocate

The Boston Globe (about North Reading)

Haverhill Eagle Tribune

The Enterprise News (Carver, Easton, Kingston, Lakeville, and Plympton)

Common Cause Massachusetts Presents 2008 E-Government Awards to 90 Cities and Towns

Here is the press release:

BOSTON (March 18, 2008)– At a State House event today Common Cause Massachusetts presented the 2008 E-Government Award to 90 cities and towns from across the Commonwealth. The event is part of Common Cause’s on-going Massachusetts Campaign for Open Government, which periodically reviews the internet presence of all 351 cities and towns in the state. The awards ceremony is also a part of the group’s efforts to honor “Sunshine Week” where media outlets highlight issues of open government.

Communities receiving the 2008 E-Government award were: Amherst, Andover, Arlington, Ashburnham, Barnstable, Becket, Bedford, Belmont, Bolton, Boston, Boxborough, Brookline, Cambridge, Carver, Chelsea, Chelmsford, Chilmark, Concord, Dedham, Douglas, Dudley, Dunstable, Duxbury, Eastham, Easton, Egermont, Everett, Falmouth, Fitchburg, Framingham, Franklin, Gloucester, Groton, Harwich, Haverhill, Hingham, Holden, Holliston, Hopkinton, Hudson, Kingston, Lakeville, Lexington, Littleton, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Melrose, Methuen, Needham, Newton, Norfolk, North Andover, North Reading, Northampton, Palmer, Paxton, Peabody, Pelham, Plympton, Provincetown, Reading, Salem, Sandwich, Saugus, Scituate, Sharon, Shrewsbury, Somerville, Southampton, Southwick, Spencer, Springfield, Stow, Sudbury, Tewksbury, Topsfield, Upton, Uxbridge, West Boylston, West Springfield, Westfield, Westford, Weston, Westport, Wilbraham, Weymouth, Williamstown, Winchester, Winthrop, Woburn, Worcester, Wrentham.

24 communities qualified for added distinction for also posting their town or city charter, a document archive, school committee agendas and minutes and those from at least one more committee or board in the municipality, a community calendar including boards and commissions, and zoning by-laws. Those municipalities were: Arlington, Barnstable, Belmont, Chelmsford, Concord, Duxbury, Eastham, Franklin, Hingham, Holliston, Hopkinton, Kingston, Needham, Newton, North Reading, Scituate, Sharon, West Boylston, Westford, Weston, Weymouth, Winchester, Worcester.

“We are pleased to be able to honor so many towns this year,” said Common Cause executive director Pam Wilmot. “Many communities rose to the challenge and significantly improved their websites over the past year.” “The foundation of our democracy is built on public access to information about our government,” added Karla de Steuben, a Common Cause board member and founder of the project. “The easier it is to obtain key information, the more likely it is that people will have the tools necessary to effectively participate in government—and hold our elected leaders accountable.”

Common Cause launched the Massachusetts Campaign For Open Government in 2006. At that time, only 24 communities met the Campaign’s minimum standards and posted key governance records, which it defines as: the community governing body’s agenda, the governing body’s minutes, current fiscal year budget, the municipality’s bylaws, code or ordinances, and if applicable, town meeting warrant and town meeting results or minutes. In addition to the awards presented, Common Cause released a full audit of the internet presence of all 351 cities and towns. 32 communities, many of them small towns, had no website at all. 36 municipalities have websites but none of the documents posted. 30 communities came very close to earning an award and only had one document missing. “The internet is an easy and cost effective way to get information into the hands of citizens. Posting these six key records takes only minutes and costs virtually nothing”, said Wilmot. “Communities that make this information available on the web are providing an important service to their citizens, and we are delighted to be able honor them.”

A copy of the full audit is available at http://www.maopengov.org/ Pictures will be posted on 3-19-2008.

About Common Cause
Common Cause Massachusetts is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, government watchdog, dedicated to citizen participation in an open, honest, and accountable government. An independent, member-supported organization, Common Cause has more than 200,000 members nationwide and 10,000 in Massachusetts.

Notifying Citizens By Email

Today's Boston Globe reports that the City of Boston is launching a pilot project in the North End to notify people via email the night before the city plans to tow cars in their neighborhood due to street cleaning. The city also uses email to notify residents of a number of other items, such as neighborhood meetings and emergency notifications. Other communities, such as the city of Newton or the town of Stow, also use email (see listserv) to notify people of town or city meetings and other important municipal information.

Email is an excellent and inexpensive way for local government to contact residents about public meetings and other important events. More communities should make use of it. It is an excellent way to encourage more civic engagement.

Back Online Again

The best laid plans, etc. The review of the websites mentioned in my last post in September will not begin until the end of December/beginning of January. We have decided to start the review a few months later this year so we can announce the results during Sunshine Week 2008, which is March 16-22. As we get closer in time to the review period, I will post more information about any additional criteria we plan to use in evaluating the town and city websites. Stay posted.

New Bloggng Format On the Way

We have not posted anything since last April. It is not because there has not been anything to post. It is because there have been other matters that have taken up my time and the time of the other people who work on the Massachusetts Campaign for Open Government. The work of MCOG is done by mostly volunteers and sometimes our other lives interfere with the time we have to spend on this very important project. If you would like to help, please contact Common Cause Massachusetts. We can always use more people.

In the next month, we will be reviewing the all websites of the cities and towns in Massachusetts for the fourth time. In addition, we will be making some changes to this blog. Hopefully, the changes will allow more frequent and timely postings. In the meantime, I will try to make up for lost time by posting at least a few times a week (and hopefully at least once a day) until the new changes are implemented.

So much for transperancy.

Today's Boston Globe has an article about how the legislature prepares its budget. Most of it is done behind close doors away from public scrutiny. The article has a quote from Common Cause Massachusetts Executive Director Pam Wilmot. "It is all closed doors, from soup to nuts," said Pamela Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts. "I don't think there's another state -- at least I haven't come across another state -- that has a similar process that is closed to the extent this one is." (Someone should explain to lobbyist Jackson C. Hall that democracy depends on openness which includes public debates.)

Every taxpayer should be outraged by this. Other states are recognizing the value of open government; Massachusetts is still back in the 20th (19th?) century. When are the legislators going to stop patronizing the voting public? When is the voting public going to start holding the legislators accountable?

Proof is in the Override Pudding

This spring a number of communities have held or are holding votes on overrides. You can read about some of the overrides on the Boston Globe's override central page. My hometown, Saugus, is one of those communities. The interesting side effect of the override campaign in Saugus is the apparent growing realization by town officials and others of the usefulness of the Internet in getting the word out about the reasons for the override. The town has posted the proposed budget for FY 2008 and the financial statements for FY 2007, something the town did not do previously.

It looks very doubtful that the override will pass in Saugus. It has become painfully obvious during the campaign that one of the factors working against the override is the perception by some people that information was kept from them. These people say they are voting against the override because they do not trust the public officials.

I am convinced that a lot of the distrust people have over the override is related to the failure of the town to be completely open about its activities in the past before the override was even considered. Eventually the perception of secrecy causes more problems than if the government had been completely open earlier on. Hopefully, Saugus public officials, and public officials in other communities experiencing similar campaigns, have realized that openness in government benefits not just the governed but also the governors.