SWGA Politics

Public = Online. Government in Real Time

I really like the Sunlight Foundation‘s work. They are working mostly at the National level to bring the same transparency to government that I work for here in Georgia and Lee County.

They’ve got a new campaign they are gearing up for that sounds REALLY good, which is the title of this post.

Lee County’s website is a pretty good source of information, but it still is lacking in one area that I correct via youtube as much as possible – it doesn’t have video records of the various meetings. In Lee County, there is absolutely no way to know for yourself what the Board of Commissioners does outside of the agenda and agenda packets posted online, the reports of the Albany Herald, WFXL, and (sometimes) WALB, and my own efforts unless you actually attend the meeting yourself. There is no way to watch it at home on your television, and there is no way to watch it online even as a streaming live broadcast.

The City of Leesburg is even worse – their website hasn’t been updated in quite a while, and City Clerk Casey Moore told me at the last meeting that it “wasn’t high on [her] priority list”. I’ve told both her and Mayor Quinn privately, and I make the statement public now: I don’t mind volunteering my own services to the City if that is what it takes to get information online and truly public. So far, they have yet to pursue this opportunity.

In this fast paced, 24/7 world we live in, there is absolutely no reason a citizen should be forced to physically attend meetings in person if they wish to know what their government is doing. We have the technology to EASILY push the information to them online, and via social networking we can even allow citizens to interact more than ever before with their government.

It is a shame Lee County chooses not to do this. We are supposed to be the “better” County in the area, if not the best, in terms of our government, schools, and quality of life. In many ways, we really are. But we could still be better, and this is one prime area. It is truly a sad day when the City of Albany/Dougherty County have better websites with more access to information than the Jewel of Southwest Georgia.

Public = Online.

It is time for Lee County, and the City of Leesburg in particular, to get with the program.