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A YouTube for your government
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Location: Blogs Now We're Talking |
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| Posted by: Joe Byrnes |
10/28/2006 12:58 AM |
Thanks to the Internet, the wit and wisdom of your County Commission is never more than a few mouse clicks away.
Marion County announced recently that videos of commission meetings are being posted at marioncountyfl.org. The staff will post them within a couple of days of the regular twice-monthly meetings.
The extra effort will help us follow our government and make decisions about our own votes.
By the way, Dunnellon, though less than one-one hundredth Marion County's size, beat the county to the punch months ago by putting recordings of its meetings on dunnellon.org.
The county videos, however, are much more convenient. Not only can you watch the entire meeting, you can select the specific agenda item you want to see.
So the public has a new reason to address the County Commission at hearings or at the end of the agenda. People can tell their friends to check them out on the Internet.
It's an incentive to be politically involved. (Call 438-2300 to schedule your five minutes of fame - or just show up and speak for two minutes.)
MC-SPAN will never be the hottest thing online.
But what if you're interested, for instance, in whether the county will opt out of the new law allowing all-terrain vehicles on unpaved roads with speed limits under 35 mph?
Then you'd want to know exactly what the commissioners and a Sheriff's Office representative said on Oct. 3, before the board agreed to hold a public hearing in December.
Thanks to the county's innovation, the information is readily available.
Supervisor of Elections Dee Brown, on the other hand, should take the hint and put some extra effort into her Web site - votemarion.com - to present all the candidates in the same light.
There is useful information on Brown's page - sample ballots, schedules, early voting information - and she isn't trying to be unfair.
Her Web page suffers because she leaves it to the politicians to do the work and leaves us with a disclaimer saying "public information may not be available in the event a Candidate did not respond to the opportunity of the website access."
At first glance, it looks like County Commissioner Jim Payton reported $82,370 in contributions through Sept. 29 but his opponent reported nothing at all. Actually, Darlene Weesner's contributions to that point totaled $5,782.50.
Payton's reports - detailing sizable contributions - are right there on the Web. But because Weesner didn't file electronically, voters don't see hers unless they walk into the office and ask for them.
If you search the Web page for Weesner's reports, you find what she filed in 2004 for a previous election.
"When they pass a state law that requires them to file electronically, then we can do that, but we cannot force them to file electronically," Brown told me last week.
There isn't the staff time, she said, for her office to post the reports.
With some outside advice and a $967 scanner, she could scan each candidate's report in less than five minutes, according to Jim Craig, director of Micrographics Inc. in Gainesville.
It's her call, but I think an informed public is worth a few minutes of a clerk's time.
These financial reports are not just a campaign "opportunity" like the photos and bios candidates can post. They are legally required filings that help us take a critical look at who's running and who's putting their money where the candidate's mouth is.
Joe Byrnes may be reached at joe@ocala.com or (352) 867-4112.
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Comments (2)
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Re: A YouTube for your government |
By Stan on
10/25/2006 5:19 PM |
Joe,
I agree with you. Posting the financials for ALL candidates should be standard operating procedure for the Supervisor's office. |
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Re: A YouTube for your government |
By Stan on
10/29/2006 9:06 PM |
Hey Joe,
You really need to do something to get more people to respond to your blog posts.
How about setting up your own blog outside of the S-B blog/forum system that covers your area of reporting? Your good work is being "buried" in a bureaucratic information system! What technocrat created it? |
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