AMY PAULIN IN THE NEWS
Saturday, June 07, 2008
The 'Pro-Am' Approach
[The Journal News]
Recent news articles by staff writers Glenn Blain and Jorge Fitz-Gibbon about profligate and, in some cases, questionable spending by Westchester County Board of Legislators' members and staff point up the need for transparency and openness in government, not to mention the importance of a watchdog press. The articles about board aide Gary Kriss, who billed taxpayers for more than $12,000 in computer software, gadgets and books, and the fantastic justifications for those expenses were promptly followed by document subpoenas from the Westchester district attorney's office.
Typically stretched-thin media, however, cannot perform all the watchdog or oversight functions in each and every jurisdiction; the responsibility is necessarily shared with ordinary citizens - the concerned taxpayers, gadflies and meeting-goers who also keep government honest, or try. The tools that benefit the media, such as the state Freedom of Information Law, used to secure the relevant Board of Legislators documents, benefit all these "citizen journalists" as well.
New watchdog tools
Both camps - the so-called "pros" and the "ams" - could soon gain new tools to ensure transparency in government, thanks to passage in the Assembly and the Senate of two "open government" bills, both sponsored in the Assembly by Amy Paulin, D-Scarsdale.
The first measure would require reimbursement for attorney fees where a party is compelled to go to court to enforce the state Open Meeting Laws. This measure, which goes against the grain of usual practice in the U.S. legal system, wherein each side pays its own attorney fees, would certainly help gain the attention of government officials who very often play dumb when confronted about closed-doors meetings in apparent violation of the open meetings law. "If you know you are in the right, this will encourage you to go to court" to enforce your rights, Paulin told the Editorial Board. "People were fearful of going to court," knowing that the cost of enforcing their rights would come out of their own pockets.
Easier record retrieval
The second measure awaiting Gov. David Paterson's signature would require that government agencies designing information retrieval systems do so in a manner that separates public information from non public data, such as personal health data or Social Security numbers. The reason: In some cases, otherwise legitimate FOIL requests have had to be denied because the public data could not be segregated from the private data, or not without considerable cost and effort. On this measure, "we worked hand and glove with" Robert Freeman, executive director of the state Committee on Open Government, Paulin said.
This measure had previously passed both chambers only to be vetoed by former Gov. George Pataki, who objected to the potential high costs. Paulin said that the prospective nature of the legislation - it would apply to records created in the future - mitigate that concern. "This bill will encourage state and local government agencies in New York to use 21st century technology as a means of maximizing public access to government information while also guaranteeing the protection of personal privacy," Freeman said.
These are smart measures that aid in oversight of government. The governor should see fit to support them when they reach his desk.