Candidates Echo Common Call - Show us the Money!
- Naked Conch - Posted by Matt Gardi - April 17, 2012
Hometown PAC put on another great event last night at Salute in Key West, providing the opportunity for candidates running for all offices to expose themselves... figuratively, thank goodness! Throughout the evening one common theme seemed to weave itself through the fabric of campaign rhetoric, and it was that of transparency.
Last night as a candidate for Clerk, I promised to work to place every County agency's line item budget online. Taxpayers deserve convenient fingertip access to see how every last penny is being spent. But I was not alone, as numerous other candidates referenced prying open budgets and providing the public access to financial documents.
This was great to see, considering the theme of this very blog Naked Conch is "Exposing the Keys, one shell at a time!" The call has to continue, and the public should be just as vocal as the candidates. This extends beyond budgets and finances, to inventory accountability, and even just being responsive to public inquiries.
The dark ages of deterring the public from gaining access to how their own resources are being allocated needs to come to an end. Administrators should not feel comfortable in charging for their own time to answer a simple public records request, such as I wrote about here when the Health Department did just that. (See Here.)
Nor should administrators feel comfortable letting public records requests languish without an explanation, as the Clerk's Office has been doing regarding providing me with inventory reports. (See Here and Here.) Especially after the County Inventory Clerk filed a complaint with the State Attorney's Office about being pressured to resign as a result of trying to expose inventory issues! (See Here.) This was before the iPad scandal erupted. Go figure, no leaders can call for the abusers to resign, but somehow the guy trying to expose the problems back in 2011 was pressured to resign.
Part of transparency is being comfortable committing to answers in writing, and not using the old, "Give me a call, let's talk," as I wrote about when the Public Defender's Office did that in response to my inquires about statements Rose Enright made before the County Commission. (See Here.) Neither candidates, nor the public, should fear the ramifications of a well connected political machine being turned against them for making simple inquiries as to the allocation of the public's resources.
Questioning why we are paying rent for waterfront property (See Left) of the Public Defender is not an attack, or mean spirited. Neither is wondering why we are expanding that rental property when staffing has not increased, and the Key West attorney case counts are tremendously lower than Upper Keys offices where there is literally empty office space. This doesn't just constitute how much money is being spent, but also how taxpayer resources are being allocated. Is it fair to Public Defender clients in Marathon that their felony attorney handles three times the caseload of that of Key West attorneys? (See Here.) To date, Public Defender Rose Enright has refused numerous offers for her to come on my show on KONK broadcasting and discuss these issues. However, she freely admits before the County Commission to gaggles of laughing approval, that she is "working on the Sylvia Murphy lounge in her office right now." With taxpayer dollars of course, I guess that is transparency of some sort.
But again, it's great to see more candidates joining me to beat the drum of transparency, let's hope it continues. We need to move into a new age of enlightenment of the public to reduce the incidence of scandals such as the recent iPad debacle. Government administrators need to know that thousands of eyes from the public are easily observing the manner with which they run their agencies. Only then will we have true accountability to the taxpayers, and you don't need to be a CPA to tally those benefits!
- Naked Conch - Posted by Matt Gardi - April 17, 2012
Hometown PAC put on another great event last night at Salute in Key West, providing the opportunity for candidates running for all offices to expose themselves... figuratively, thank goodness! Throughout the evening one common theme seemed to weave itself through the fabric of campaign rhetoric, and it was that of transparency.
Last night as a candidate for Clerk, I promised to work to place every County agency's line item budget online. Taxpayers deserve convenient fingertip access to see how every last penny is being spent. But I was not alone, as numerous other candidates referenced prying open budgets and providing the public access to financial documents.
This was great to see, considering the theme of this very blog Naked Conch is "Exposing the Keys, one shell at a time!" The call has to continue, and the public should be just as vocal as the candidates. This extends beyond budgets and finances, to inventory accountability, and even just being responsive to public inquiries.
The dark ages of deterring the public from gaining access to how their own resources are being allocated needs to come to an end. Administrators should not feel comfortable in charging for their own time to answer a simple public records request, such as I wrote about here when the Health Department did just that. (See Here.)
Nor should administrators feel comfortable letting public records requests languish without an explanation, as the Clerk's Office has been doing regarding providing me with inventory reports. (See Here and Here.) Especially after the County Inventory Clerk filed a complaint with the State Attorney's Office about being pressured to resign as a result of trying to expose inventory issues! (See Here.) This was before the iPad scandal erupted. Go figure, no leaders can call for the abusers to resign, but somehow the guy trying to expose the problems back in 2011 was pressured to resign.
Part of transparency is being comfortable committing to answers in writing, and not using the old, "Give me a call, let's talk," as I wrote about when the Public Defender's Office did that in response to my inquires about statements Rose Enright made before the County Commission. (See Here.) Neither candidates, nor the public, should fear the ramifications of a well connected political machine being turned against them for making simple inquiries as to the allocation of the public's resources.
But again, it's great to see more candidates joining me to beat the drum of transparency, let's hope it continues. We need to move into a new age of enlightenment of the public to reduce the incidence of scandals such as the recent iPad debacle. Government administrators need to know that thousands of eyes from the public are easily observing the manner with which they run their agencies. Only then will we have true accountability to the taxpayers, and you don't need to be a CPA to tally those benefits!
It was great seeing you last night at Hometown! PAC. I absolutely agree that we need to open up our government to see how the tax payer's money is being spent.
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly the type of transparency I will bring to Mosquito Control if elected as their watchdog :)