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Welcome Argus Readers  |
A few months ago, a group of us bloggers decided to target Shiawassee County during Sunshine Week. We were going to flood the county and the municipalities with requests for public information. Of particular interest were documents relevant to the Drain Office case and the County Administrator’s budget. We were going to target both Democrats and Republicans … no one was off limits. The plan was to track the responses and publish them on our blogs, as well as send the results to the media. |
Unfortunately we weren’t able to do this. The Michigan budget crisis has kept most of my fellow bloggers too busy to spend time on Shiawassee County.
| Few things infuriate me more than the arrogance displayed by our public officials when they deny us information that we have a right to know. I’m not talking about information that would jeopardize public safety … I’m talking about things like the legal opinion on McAvoy’s contract. Information like this is treated like it’s a state secret. Ask too many questions and McAvoy and Pavlica will try to send you off to Gitmo. “It’s none of your business” … “That information doesn’t exist” … “That information is privileged” … “That information was discussed in a closed session” … “I wish everyone would just stop asking about it” … (emphasis mine) | Did you know… you have to submit a FOIA and pay a copy charge to get a copy of the Shiawassee County budget? You have to pay the county to find out how your tax dollars are being spent. |
I can’t predict how the Sunshine audits would have turned out, but I am guessing the results would’ve been embarrassing to a few people. Thinking about it now, maybe it’s best to do the audit during an election year. In 2008, all of our officials will be up for election … what better time to report on their performance?
Meanwhile, this is a fair warning to those of you in charge of our public information … the next FOIA you get might not have anything to do with the information being requested.
That is a story in itself- the fact that you can’t get anything out of these people.
Keep hammering them, and keep reporting it. Name names. Who denied what and when.
And yes, definitely bring it up next year. Over and over.
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Lest you have forgotten-you did publish the “Budget” right here on your website, just so it could be available without having to pay ridiculouse copy fees for it.
http://christinebarry.com/2006/11/30/shiawassee-county-budget-2007/
The county has put minutes of the meetings on their website: The “Community Calendar” click on the meeting.
Hopefully “we” will get it together someday to publish more of this info on the net, even if the county doesn’t.
The state used to publish a booklet entitled “YOUR RIGHT TO KNOW”…….the county officials don’t seem to understand that it is our RIGHT to know. this isn’t a ‘privilege’ they can grant or deny us so frivolously. This is our RIGHT that they are messin’ with…shame on them.
Maybe ‘we’ should organize and file lawsuits against the county.
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Yes you & I have been publishing everything we get our hands on … and the county has just started to publish info like minutes and agendas. I think that’s due to our work and the work of Commissioners Johnson and Stewart.
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Excellant articles you have linked to. I hope everyone went there and read them.
Every known method of intimidation and/or delay has been used by our county officials….except our County Clerk.
Lauri Braid is our “FOIA COORDINATOR” which every other official uses as an excuse to deny information. i.e. “You have to submit a written request to the “FOIA COORDINATOR”….
NO YOU DON’T……the request doesn’t even have to be written. Just ask for it.
Lauri has gone above and beyond to be helpful and prompt with her responses. I very much appreciate her. It’s when she has to forward to other officials…they are the ones that play silly games.
“PROMPT” now there is a word the others don’t understand. They have 5 days to respond and by God they will take the 5 days. They don’t have to fulfill the request in 5 days, just respond and sometimes that response is to request an additional 10 days. All legal, but highly suspect and I think designed to delay providing the information.
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