NH INdy
By STEVE KALB
It seemed like a true legislative miracle last year when a bill designed to make it easier for people to know what government is doing on the local level was proposed and ultimately signed into law by Gov.r Rell.
As of last October, municipalities are required to post the minutes of public meetings on their websites within seven days. They are also required to post a schedule of regular meetings for one year by January of this year and must post notice of special meetings at least 24 hours in advance.
Faced with this incredible mandate to actually inform citizens of what they are doing what did a few cities and towns do?
1 comment:
The law itself is a decade late, there's no excuse at this point and by the way, 7 days is more time than anyone needs under normal circumstances.
At some point during the time I chaired the local ZBA (I was off and on over a 20 year period) I was proud that with the help of Steve Coppage who operated southington.com, the Southington Zoning Board of Appeals was the first ZBA in the state to have both our agenda and verbatim minutes online.
Steve put the zoning regs in their entirety up as well.
However, when I nominated him for an FOI award he was ignored.
I'll go to my grave knowing better - he deserved it.
We were years before anyone other town.
At this point, it's time to demand live webcams at every public board or commission meeting and the resulting video should be available online at no charge forever.
Better government because;
We all tend to act a little better if we think our mothers are watching.
Post a Comment