From The Salt Lake Tribune:
Rep. Brian King’s efforts to require agency’s to provide public documents at no cost is going on the back burner.
The House Political Subdivisions Committee voted unanimously Monday to send HB122 back to the House Rules Committee to be assigned to interim study during the year. House Minority Leader Jennifer Seelig, D-Salt Lake City, said that would give King time to work out concerns raised by opponents of the bill.
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From San Francisco Chronicle:
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Two years after Utah lawmakers drew public fury with a restrictive public records bill, some legislators are keeping up a reconciliation effort with bills to designed expand access to public records.
Lawmakers have introduced legislation to create online portals for legislative emails and other public records and to require agencies to waive records request fees in certain cases.
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From The Salt Lake Tribune:
The State Records Committee’s first ruling Thursday was bittersweet for board members and came without hearing a word of testimony.
The seven-member panel honored its departing chairwoman with a formal order recognizing Betsy Ross for her 18 years on the committee, a stint spanning the history of Utah’s current open-records law.
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A few state FOIA and local open government news items selected from many of interest that we might or might not have drawn attention to earlier in the week:
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From The Salt Lake Tribune:
On paper, Utah’s records law looks pretty straightforward, but in practice some records requests in small Utah towns can lead to deep fissures with personal attacks and legal maneuvering.
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From The Salt Lake Tribune:
Colorado Common Cause has raised concerns about a meeting Uintah County officials organized in Vernal with state officials and Carbon and Duchesne county leaders along with officials from Wyoming and Colorado counties. Common Cause filed records requests with the counties and received 450 pages, many of them emails, some of which indicate industry lobbyists helped craft a resolution that the counties later passed.
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From The Salt Lake Tribune:
Open-government advocates say documents obtained through a records request show that three Utah counties illegally closed a meeting during which they discussed how to oppose a federal plan to limit oil-shale leasing.
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A few open government and FOIA news items selected from many of interest that we might or might not have drawn attention to earlier. Be sure to check out Sunshine Week 2012 News while you're at it.
Hacking as a Civic Duty
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