9/05/2007

Free Information

Back on August 21, I asked for some information from the City.

Does this count as a response?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

How about fifty or so concern citizens hit them with a FOI request at once?

Anonymous said...

Last night Com. Rosenbaum said he did not receive any phone calls about the Ord. to extend city services without annexation - so he voted for it. Oh he wants phone calls? I did not know. At a speaking engagment today Com. Jovic Kuntz said to her listeners, "You can call me and ask questions..We do not do things behind closed doors."
Oh, she wants phone calls too.

But phone calls would not benifit those of us who want public answers. Why will they not answer questions in public?

Anonymous said...

GeeGuy & MJ comments.....

ROFLOL....tears streaming down my face.

Maybe they are busy working on skate park grafitti and animal shelter issues...or just listening to the phones ring.

moorcat said...

One of our City Councilmen found a way to get the City Hall personel to respond to FOI requests -

He would go to City Hall with a written request to be shown the information he was requesting. When they refused, he would demand a SIGNED written responce explaining why the request was being refused. He even provided a convienent space on the request form for them to state the reason and to provide the signiture. Amazingly enough, he hasn't been refused access to information since he started doing this. I will have to try that the next time I need to get information.

BTW - does it strike anyone as odd that a CITY COUNCILMAN would have to resort to this method to get Public information from the City...

Moorcat

GeeGuy said...

Moorcat, that's a great idea. Unfortunately, our city uses one of their best weapons against me: time. They delay, obfuscate, and double talk.

I have a full-time job. I just do not have time to walk over to the Civic Center and stand around for a couple hours a day.

Anonymous said...

"our city uses one of their best weapons against me: time. They delay, obfuscate, and double talk."

Yes, so do too many people in Great Falls who work in the county for state government agencies.

Why don't we send facts to FOX NEWS it might break into a national scandal like the time the feds wouldn't give the farmers water?

moorcat said...

I have tried to get actual news reporting services interested in the situation here but with little success. The local paper appears too worried about repercussions and the non-local papers don't seem to care about possible misconduct in a little town in Southwest Montana.

Now Great Falls is a much larger town and the amount of money you are talking about will raise some eyebrows. You might have better luck than I did.

Moorcat