Kansas Open Records
Do you want to become a more effective citizen journalist to keep your local government more accountable? If you do, I will be hosting investigative journalism workshops as part of the Kansas City Post-Party Summit to be held this Friday and Saturday May 7-8 in Kansas City. If you are not interested in citizen journalism, [...]
Continue reading about Investigative Journalism Workshops at KC Post-Party Summit on Saturday
Last week Governor Parkinson announced the appointment of State Rep Josh Svaty (D-Ellsworth) to be the Acting Secretary of Agriculture, replacing Adrian Polansky who is taking a position with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Svaty seems to be a good fit to be Ag Secretary since in his fourth term as State Rep he is [...]
Continue reading about Mystery: New Acting Kansas Ag Secretary has never reported farm income
A week ago I followed the example of fellow blogger Maggie Thurber from Ohio in submitting a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to my representative in Congress. We wanted to discover the count of calls for and against the “Cap and Trade” bill voted on by our members in Congress on June 26. Both [...]
Democratic Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur of Toledo, Ohio may have been “bought off” for her “yes” vote for the recent Cap and Trade bill in the U.S. House. A “Kaptur project” was part of the 310-page amendment to the legislation released at 3 AM on the day of the vote. According to the Washington Times, the [...]
Attorney General Steve Six‘s office is providing training this week at four locations in Kansas on “Open Meetings” and “Open Records.” Today these training sessions were in Olathe and about 120 attended. Yesterday the training was held in Dodge City; sessions will be held in Topeka and Wichita on Thursday and Friday. The sessions were [...]
Continue reading about Kansas Open Meetings/Open Records Training
Seven weeks after the original request, Saline County’s appraiser, under pressure from an impending lawsuit, delivered some of the property tax data sought by the Flint Hills Center for Public Policy from all Kansas counties. As of May 29, 44 of 105 Kansas counties have not provided all the requested data. What started out as [...]
A recent Meadowlark article showed how to find the Legislative Resource Center in the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, DC. One of the pieces of information available from the LRC about each member of the U.S. House is a Financial Disclosure Report. One can search for the 2008 Financial Disclosure Reports online for any [...]
Continue reading about Financial Disclosure Statements Filed by Members of U.S. House
Our “open government” isn’t so open and some information about those who represent us in the U.S. Congress is hidden from normal citizens unless you travel to Washington, DC. After a problem last summer in obtaining franking records about members of the U.S. Congress from Kansas, I’ve been looking for an opportunity to visit the [...]
Continue reading about Open Records at the Legislative Resource Center in DC
Kansas Attorney General Steve Six will host regional workshops in June to train interested citizens on the Kansas Open Records Act (KORA) and the Kansas Open Meetings Act (KOMA). A flyer on the AG’s web site suggests these free regional training workshops might benefit elected officials, appointed officials, staff for state and local units of [...]
Continue reading about Kansas Attorney General to provide training on Open Records & Open Meetings
