Thursday, September 29, 2011
Little Rock Government Little Rock City Hall secrecy continues
Posted by Max Brantley on Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 6:57 AM
Mayor Mark Stodola's "transparent" city government remains opaque. Two days after an FOI for accumulated city data on ward redistricting, none has been provided. The custodian of the documents has not replied, as law requires, to my FOI request. Clearly, as an article in the Democrat-Gazette this morning indicates, select city directors have been informed of what new shape their districts will take. Note that Director Ken Richardson, who takes exception to city leadership from time to time, seems less certain about what shape his ward will take than Doris Wright and Lance Hines, leadership team players.
City Manager Bruce Moore has told me he had no materials related to my request except a document with new population data in existing wards. That's interesting. I asked Metroplan director Jim McKenzie for any work his agency had done for the city. His response:
We did some early analysis for LR relative to the census implications for redistricting. Unlike some of our members who asked us to handle developing redistricting alternatives for them, LR is handling that in house. We have given the City Manager all of the analysis we did for them and he would be the appropriate party to whom to address your request.
I have asked Bruce Moore for this analysis. I expect the same transparency and cooperation I've received to date — zero. The city sham continues. Do you trust them to be any more forthcoming about decisions on spending their new half-billion dollars? Or will all internal studies and reports and analysis be deemed in "active use" (secret) until the moment an issue is worked out and presented full-blown to the City Board as a done deal? Past is prologue. This isn't how the public's government should operate.
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Comments (2)
Showing 1-2 of 2
Ah Max! You can hear the endless mantra being mumbled over and over in City Hall. Please go away, please go away, wait for a couple of days, wait for a couple of days . . .
Transparency in government just as good as it was back during the 'Kingmaker' and Governors Cherry and Faubus what progress in Little Rock City Government in 65 years.
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