OPEN RECORDS

Not long ago, I went before the College Station City Council to ask them to add to a future agenda consideration of posting the campaign finance reports for City Council candidates to the city’s web site.

Many of our council members have expressed concern about the influence of special interest money in City Council elections. Ironically, those most indulgent in big campaign spending, campaigned the loudest on “transparency in government.”

I figured this was a no-brainer. So you can imagine my surprise to learn that council unanimously turned down this request. You may also be surprised to hear that I can appreciate their perspective, wrong though it is.

First of all we must understand that this is a little like asking council to stand around in their underwear. It is very difficult to ask people for money. Often candidates are getting money from people of apposing camps on certain issues. Publicly revealing this information must be a very uncomfortable situation. Council made this decision while out of town at a workshop. I can just imagine the motivation to make this quietly go away.

Please do not read any cynicism into these comments. I am completely sincere when I say that this decision was very understandable. I have a huge amount of respect for the majority of our council members. Not only is there natural motivation on the part of those put in a position of raising campaign money not to make this information public, there has also not been much of a push from citizens to do this. So there is no sense of a mandate.

But, as I have spoken to folks, I get the sense that the citizens of College Station understand the importance of enacting local campaign finance reform, of which this is but the first small step. There was a time, not too long ago, when running for City Council in College Station may have cost a candidate a couple thousand dollars. Now there are candidates who are spending over $20,000.00 to be elected to an unpaid position. Where do you suppose that money is coming from? It is, in large measure, coming from those who have a financial stake in the development of College Station.

As we have all heard “sunshine is the best disinfectant.”

The reason that I was given for this not going forward was because citizens can access this information by filing a freedom of information request with the city secretary. The other reason given for not posting this important voter information was because it would cost the city too much money to post this information to the web site.

One of the most frequently voiced frustrations from city staff and city council is the degree to which citizens do not take an interest in the running of their city government. I share that frustration. I also know that the best way to deal with this is to be proactive in providing citizens with information in a way that allows them to easily connect the dots for themselves. This means providing important voter information rather than making someone go to the city to file an open records request and then return a few days later to pay for the printing before they can get this public information. This creates a cult of secrecy in which only those with the motivation to know have access to information. By and large, those with the motivation to know are those interested in the quantity of business rather than the quality of life in our city. Citizens must put pressure on our local officials to create culture of openness that encourages informed citizen engagement in the life of our community.

As for the cost, all that I can say is, HA!!! It takes very little time to post information to a web site - probably less time than to fill a single freedom of information request. And even if it were time consuming, isn’t providing important public information reason enough?

Please take the time to request having this issue place on a city council agenda so that it can be publicly discussed. It is our responsibility to let our elected officials know that this is important to us.