One big step for you from the new City Council: A vote for transparency

A Lakeside.com editorial

At the end of the January Lakeside city council meeting a significant vote took place.

The newly seated council unanimously voted for a new level of government transparency. As this becomes reality, it has the potential to give you, the citizen, voter, shareholder, and boss of your city a valuable key.

That key can open the door to a new level of understanding and even your further involvement in your own government, should you choose to do so.

Included in this landmark Lakeside vote, was the approval of scanning all ordinances, initiatives, planning requirements, etc., and to make those documents available to the public via the internet.

Newly elected council member Elaine Armstong showed the necessary fortitude to raise the issue and moved to make the documents available. She also offered to volunteer some of her time to help this along.

This kind of  transparency was a promise made by Orville Nelson and the  ‘A-Team’ gang he was a part of in 06′. 

Strangely, it was never even broached as a topic for vote by any of them at any meeting over the past two years. That came despite the fact they each personally signed a pledge mailed to every voter to do just that. (Crockett was absent from the January meeting).

Assuming that the vote of the council isn’t derailed by the forces of secrecy along the way, you will soon be able to research information about the city’s affairs from the comfort of your home computer, instead of having to go to city hall for information that isn’t as rich in detail.

The politicians that become addicted to government power (a majority of those elected nationwide in our view), often count on exclusive or near-exclusive access to government information as a means to keep you in the dark. A non-enlightened citizen is ripe for exploitation and abuse.

The old saying, “knowledge is power” applies here. And the more exclusive the information is, the more you are excluded from being empowered yourself.

And let’s face it, who has had the time and fortitude to learn the answers to what is really going in your city (or any other level of government). It’s always been too much of a hassle for all but the very few hardy folks in any community.

The internet, as well has tremendous advances in information technology, makes the ability of citizens to know useful and in depth details about what its governments are doing must become the new essential part of maintaining a free society.

Having information available on a universal computer network should also save valuable time for city employees.

And to get the job done right, there is some information which needs to stay off the net. That would include individual names that go with sewer bill payments and accounts, for instance. And it also includes city employee personnel records, of course.

That promise got scuttled by some of those same spirits  interested in using the city for power and profit, rather than being good and humble servants. It’s time for Orville Nelson, and Tim Crockett to not only support this idea, but to stand out and take the lead as a means to make amends.

We are pleased to see that the newly elected council has taken the first step in standing true to that particular promise. We’ll keep you apprised of the progress in this important test of the sincerity of the new council.