Why Would FOIA Not Apply to the Wilmington Mayor’s Office?

DelCOG (and John Flaherty) informs us of something pretty alarming -- that AG Biden's office officially thinks that the Office of the Wilmington Mayor is *not* covered by FOIA. How can that be, you ask? According to the DelCOG letter, the AGs office has issued an opinion at the Wilmington Mayor's office is not subject to FOIA because the Mayor's office is a 1 person agency.

Delaware Gets a C- on the Corruption Risk Report Card

The State Integrity Investigation has conducted a year-long study of the effectiveness (or even existence) of each state's laws and operating procedures in place to deter corruption and promote government accountability and openness. This report is done and published as of yesterday (19 March 2012) and Delaware gets an overall grade of C-, ranked #22 in terms of least corruption risk out of all 50 states. The state that came in the best? That would be New Jersey, with a grade of B+. Take a look at Delaware's report card:

We Don’t Need No Stinking Ethics Commission!

NCCo County Executive Paul Clark wants us to believe that cutting back on the County's Ethics Commission budget is somehow good fiscal responsibility. When in fact -- and certainly given his own "ethics" history -- it is utterly irresponsible to cut back the ability of this Commission to watch over the doings and interactions of individuals in County government.

Ginger Gibson Finds the JFC Still Not Open

Last year's hard won HB 1 victory was supposed to mean that legislature business was to be done in the light of day -- with ample and good notice to the public of meetings and hearings as well as making sure that minutes or recordings of meetings were made and made public.

NCCo Tries to Make Ethics Reports Harder to Get

According to the NJ, the NCCo Council is looking to provide itself some cover from having to release some of its ethics reports. You read that right. Paul Clark and Georgie Smiley are working at a bank shot with this bill -- trying to pretend that the work of the Commission doesn't count with the public unless they find a problem:

Kauai: Things Ain’t That Different in the Middle of the Pacific

I was fortunate enough to have a vacation to the island of Kauai, Hawaii for 11 days. I highly recommend it to anyone that may be looking for a little R&R in one of the most beautiful places in the world. Being a political junkie and a geek, I actually spent some time (mostly while changing of something) watching the goings on of their Kauai County Council. There appears to still be a battle for transparency and access for many documents from Kauai's government.