While doing some research, I discovered that one of my older articles had been corrupted and no longer showed for public viewing. I am reproducing it here in case there are other people looking at the FOIA issues I was dealing with back then. This was originally posted on:
4/28/08
Where are the minutes to public
meetings?
I took another trip to Town Hall the
other day. I found a large portion of those documents (dating back to
2002) were still in handwritten, illegible (to me) form that I could
not make heads or tails of.
In order to get access to those
official public documents, I submitted another FOIA request. The cost
per Randy Wingfield , the Planning Department Director, via a
telephone conversation is $566.83. A price well paid IF these
are the official, legal documents that I am being provided this time
instead of the draft documents I paid for on the last FOIA request.
If I can get these official documents, then that will mean they will
finally be accessible to all citizens. These documents and all others
that I have acquired will be available at the Toy Station in Cambria
for local citizens to look at and will also be available online soon
at a special community bulletin board website that is under
construction.
These documents along with some others I have
requested should provide some interesting insights into local
government.
Elected officials and the Town Manager are in
those positions to serve the public. Perhaps a survey needs to be
done of citizen satisfaction that includes such things as
accessibility of those officials, their job performance.......Oh, but
wait, there is one, May 6th is when people get to fill it out. It is
called a ballot, and it is your opportunity to rate the job
performance of elected officials.
GET OUT AND VOTE!!!!!
(Just so you know, I have not received the requested copies of many of those minutes as of today, and I am waiting for the bill from the Town since the estimate I paid originally was determined to be low. I am also compiling a list of those items which I received duplicate, triplicate, and, in some instances, quadruple copies of to see if I can get the Town to reimburse for unnecessary copies. Copies of the bills from the Town will be available on the website soon.)