Connecticut police departments must equip all officers with body cameras by July 2022. But the bill requiring body cameras didn’t designate a state agency to oversee implementation. “There is no enforcement mechanism regarding compliance,” said Marc Pelka, the undersecretary for criminal justice policy and planning at the state’s Office of Policy and Management. According to…
Tag: Connecticut
Connecticut Lawyers and Legislators Debate Costs and Benefits as Policing Bill is Signed into Law
On Thursday Governor Ned Lamont signed into law “An Act Concerning Police Accountability,” after two late nights of debate in the House and the Senate. The legislation includes more than 40 substantive changes to policing in Connecticut, from new requirements regarding the use of lethal force to provisions for allowing civilian review boards on the…
Connecticut FOI Commission admonishes municipalities for illegal meetings, illegal fees
hortly after the Bridgeport City Council’s budget committee opened its meeting last May, Councilwoman Jeannette Herron took up the first order of business with a directive to members of the public. “Okay, everybody out,” she declared. “Make a motion,” Council President Aidee Nieves said, followed by a city attorney saying something — it was partly…
Good Government Group Grades The Fiscal Transparency of Special Districts in Connecticut
They’re outside the traditional forms of local or state government, but so-called special districts spend more than $200 billion annually.
Nationwide, there are 38,000 of these government entities that provide a specific service for a designated area that would otherwise typically be provided by a local or state government.
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FOI Advocates Blast Connecticut Legislature’s Effort To ‘Pre-Approve’ Government TV Coverage
The Connecticut General Assembly is trying to exert more control over CT-N TV coverage of state government proceedings under a new request for proposals for a new five-year contract, raising protests freedom-of-information advocates.
The issue was Topic A at a midday meeting Wednesday of the Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information—a group that has been "working for open, accountable government and a free press since 1955," according to its website.
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Connecticut: Bill Would Impose Fee On Excessive FOIA Requests
In Connecticut a bill before the legislature seeks to limit frivolous complaints to the state’s Freedom of Information Commission.
Republican State Representative Adam Dunsby of Easton proposed the bill. It would impose a $125 fee for two or more complaints submitted to the commission within a calendar year.
During a public hearing this week, Dunsby said these numerous complaints are not about transparency.
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CT: Public Utility Uses Federal Anti-Terrorism Measure To Block Release Of Document To Critic
The Hartford region's water-and-sewer agency has invoked a little-used federal Department of Homeland Security anti-terrorism restriction to block citizens' access to what once was public information about its water-supply system.
Critics are blasting the legal maneuver by the Metropolitan District, known as the MDC, to have its water supply plan designated as "protected critical infrastructure information" by the homeland security department — under a post-9/11 program designed to prevent damage to public facilities by terrorists.
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Advocates argue budget threatens Connecticut’s right-to-know agency
Both the state Freedom of Information Commission and the state's leading right-to-know advocacy group warned Friday that a proposed 20 percent budget cut for the commission — and the possible transfer of its public information officer into Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s office — could greatly weaken state government transparency.
But the Senate chair of the General Assembly’s Appropriations Committee, West Hartford Democrat Beth Bye, warned that the FOIC’s funding is far from settled, and many alternatives remain on the table.
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Connecticut teacher evaluation data likely to be made public, not individual scores
Controversy is mounting over whether the state will require teachers to be evaluated and graded based partly on student test scores, but under pressure from the Freedom of Information Commission, the state is poised to begin releasing some evaluation data to the public.
The state legislature is currently considering a bill, sponsored by 52 of its 187 members, that would override the State Board of Education's push to link student test scores and teacher evaluations.
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Experts: Police body cameras will become standard in Connecticut, but funding still a question
Body cameras will soon be standard operating equipment for all police officers in Connecticut, according to a group of law enforcement and freedom of information experts who participated in a recent Southern Connecticut State University forum.
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