First Amendment & FOIA
City program accountability questioned
Toni Coleman of the St. Paul Pioneer Press analyzed data on the city’s Sales Tax Revitalization (STAR) grant program, finding that “accountability under STAR is uneven because of the program’s complicated structure. Most projects go through a structured review process, for example, but individual City Council members circumvent that if they want. In addition, some…
Read MoreFOI requests improve, but some agencies still lag
Colleen Krantz of The Des Moines Register and Janet Rorholm of The (Cedar Rapids) Gazette report that a newspaper audit of public records in Iowa shows that “law enforcement agencies in Iowa provided greater access to their public documents during a recent investigation by Iowa newspapers than the agencies did five years ago, yet police…
Read MoreWealthy schools benefit more from construction money
Steve Chambers and Robert Gebeloff of The (Newark) Star-Ledger analyzed state school construction data to find that “New Jersey’s wealthiest districts have been far more successful qualifying for state money than middle-class or blue-collar ones. And with two-thirds of the state money already spent or committed, affluent districts have landed 24 percent more construction funding…
Read MoreChicago recycling program success exagerated
Laurie Cohen and Dan Mihalopoulos of the Chicago Tribune, along with Gary Washburn, used city records to show that “less paper, plastic, metals and other recyclables were salvaged from Chicago’s household garbage in the last two years than at any time since the program’s earliest years.” The paper’s investigation found that the city “has quietly…
Read MoreExpunged records raise concern over judicial fairness
Steve Myers of the Mobile Register reveals the existence of hundreds of court cases where convictions were removed from the public record. “The practice of expunging records came to the forefront recently due to the case of Mobile County school board President David Thomas, who was arrested for drunken driving in 1998. Before he was…
Read MorePolice response times longer in certain areas
Paul Goodsell and Lynn Safranek of the Omaha World-Herald examined 911 calls between 2000 and 2004 to find that “police took longest to respond to west Omaha calls. East of I-680, it took an average of 6 minutes and 31 seconds last year for the first officer to arrive on the highest priority calls. West…
Read MoreHigh toxin levels downplayed by regulators
Keith Matheny of the Traverse City Record-Eagle used state and federal records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act to show that while the public learned about deadly toxins present in the Bay Harbor gated community last fall, “regulators knew of contamination from cement kiln dust piles as far back as the 1980s.” The documents…
Read MoreNonprofits not required to follow sunshine laws
Matthew Hirsch of the San Francisco Bay Guardian investigated nonprofit city contracts and found that San Francisco is spending billions on nonprofit contracts without adequate oversight. “Since 2002 … the city has distributed more than $1.5 billion to nonprofit organizations …” The nonprofits receiving the contracts, unlike city agencies, do not have to comply with…
Read MoreProblems shielding troops more extensive than thought
Michael Moss of the New York Times used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain documents showing that “the Pentagon’s difficulties in shielding troops and their vehicles with armor have been far more extensive and intractable than officials have acknowledged.” The paper used a Department of Defense inspector general’s report that outlined the problems in…
Read MoreOfficials fail to act on abuse claims
Michelle Roberts of The Oregonian found that warnings about abusive behavior by state parole officer Michael Lee Boyles went unheeded for years, and Oregon officials acted only after the suicide of a young man supervised by Boyles. “State officials received repeated and detailed warnings from a family raising concerns about Boyles and his behavior with…
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