Tomorrow [Friday, March 3] will be Norton Bonaparte's last day at City Hall. Norton takes up his new duties as Topeka, Kansas' first City Manager on March 13th.**
One thing Norton has pointed out to me that we can learn from Topeka is that the city makes information about what it is up to available to its citizens in an easy, free and timely manner. What a concept!
All its Council meeting packets, agendas, and minutes are available online.
The city's website is here. A sample Council packet is here. The agenda for that particular meeting is always the first document in the packet. Minutes of the Council meetings are posted here.
Council resolutions are posted here and ordinances are posted here.
I am fascinated by the ease of obtaining information because in Plainfield it is just not easy for our residents to do so.
How did Topeka get to a place where Plainfield is not? Is it because they are bigger and have more money to spend? I don't think so. Is it because they use a technology that is too costly and not available to us? No.
Basically, it is because the city of Topeka regards information as properly belonging to the public in a timely and convenient manner.
How could Plainfield get to this place? In reality, we are already most of the way there. As things stand now, all the documents that Topeka makes available online are currently prepared in digital format here in Plainfield: Agendas, resolutions and ordinances are prepared in Microsoft Word and that is the basis for making the information available to all the world electronically.
The piece that is missing? Actually, there are two. The first is a simple software solution: allowing the creator of a document [agenda, resolution or ordinance] to convert it to a PDF file once it is in final format. [In the case of agendas, many communities post 'tentative' agendas, recognizing that there may always be changes at the last minute.]
The second piece is making it possible for the Clerk's office to publish these files to the city's website. This also is not rocket science. It means structuring the website so that there is a logical place to put stuff, and providng the Clerk's office with easy, push-button software at a cost of a few hundred dollars.
So what is lacking? Somewhere, whether in the Clerk's office [which is responsible for the keeping of public records and making them available] or in the Council [which is responsible for supervising the work of the Clerk], the will to get it done has been lacking.
The people of Plainfield have a right to expect that to change. Sooner rather than later.
Meanwhile, we all wish Norton Godspeed and the best in his new position in Topeka. Though he is certain to have challenges, you can be sure that the availability of public records will not be one of them.
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**In July, 2004, the Topeka City Council adopted a charter change [see:"_ch94-relating_to_a_change_in_the_form_of_government.pdf" which moved the city of 120,000 [also the state capital] from a 'strong mayor' to a 'council-manager' form of government, in which the City Manager is the chief executive officer of the city, responsible to the Council for the complete management of city government.
The Council-Manager form of government is quite popular in the midwest and west, having its roots in the Progressive movement which sprang up under the leadership of Wisconsin's Sen. Robert LaFollette in the early part of the 20th century. Besides the idea of a professional manager, Progressives supported initiative, recall and referendum policies. New Jersey was influenced by these ideas and they are all incorporated into our state laws -- including the option for a city manager, though there are few in the state. Would that be a good idea for Plainfield? That's a subject for another day. You can read more about LaFollette here [with selections from his speeches and writings], in Wikipedia, and at the Wisconsin Historical Society.
-- Dan Damon
Keywords: Records
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