Yakima County Does Poorly in State Auditor Performance Audit

The Yakima Herald-Republic reports that Yakima County rated very poorly in the State Auditor's public records performance audit.

The County accuses the State Auditor's Office of lying. The State Auditor's Office did not receive responses to several test requests to the County; the County claims it has the responses and the State Auditor's Office is out to get them. Seriously. Read it for yourself.

It would be interesting to get the electronic versions of those responses (presumably they are Word documents) and see when they were created. That would establish if they existed before the State Auditor's report. This is yet another example of why electronic records, as opposed to paper ones, shed additional accountability light on government.

State Auditor Public Records Performance Audit Story

This story from The Olympian describes the State Auditor's performance audit on public records.

The story notes that Thurston County would not allow its public records officer to be interviewed one-on-one by the State Auditor's Office. Hmmm... wonder why.

State-Spending Searchable Database--Signed Into Law

Nice work, Washington Policy Center.

Puyallup Says It's Committed to Open Gov't

We don't limit our postings to those stories negatively portraying local government.

Here is an op-ed piece by the City of Puyallup saying they have changed how they approach public records and open meetings. This is welcome news.

Walla Walla Union-Bulletin Editorial on Sunshine Committee Recommendations

Another editorial on the Sunshine Committee's year-long work of recommending the repeal of two of the about 300 exemptions from disclosure.

TNT Editorial on Sunshine Committee's First Recommendations

The Tacoma News-Tribune writes this editorial about the Sunshine Committee's recommendation during it's roughly year of existence to repeal two exemptions from disclosure. Referring to the 300 or so remaining exemptions, the TNT writes:

"Two down, 298-plus to go."