Last week, the Vermont State Employees Association released emails sent among members of the Douglas Administration concerning cuts in state employees. Some commentators noted that this might touch off a war of public records requests. Yup, it certainly might.
On Friday afternoon, First Class Education for Vermont and I requested copies of email communications from Speaker Symington, Leader Partridge, and other key legislators concerning Vermont-NEA, Act 82, and any other education finance legislation. It certainly would be interesting to shed light on the story of how the two-votes flip-flop came about, for instance. Vermont law gives these people until Tuesday afternoon to respond. I'll keep the Tiger readers posted. Does anyone have any ideas for other information we should get from our legislators?
How about the memos and emails that criss-crossed the administrative circles when the decisions to fill all those 12, 14, 16 or how-many-ever public relations jobs, one for every agency, was made? I bet taxpayers would want to know why these positions were all of a sudden so important? Or, maybe why the new hires were basically all from the Vermont media circles? Or, if the administration saw any connection between filling these jobs and an up-coming election?
Be careful what game you decide to play Curt!
Posted by: G. Cross | September 08, 2008 at 09:30 AM
Get everything boys. Who cares if a lefty like Symington gets in hot water or the same happens to a lefty like Douglas. This place is pretty short on Douglas fans, but the best the Dems have on him is staffing a bunch of PR positions. Big whoopping deal VT has been heavy consumer of PR services for years.
Posted by: GreggB | September 08, 2008 at 12:14 PM
Well George, if you'd like to look for the smoking gun email that shows the Douglas people sitting around plotting to fill the government with p.r. people, you go right ahead. Still haven't heard from your Dem friends, btw.
Posted by: Curtis Hier | September 08, 2008 at 02:32 PM
Curtis,
You need to get a life.
Posted by: Dan Generous | September 08, 2008 at 03:04 PM
The answer is the Transparency Movement. Wherein state's post ALL their expenditures on the web for the taxpayers to review and hold people of whatever political party responsible. Too many PR execs blowing bucks in an election year? Check the web. Too much wasted on education industry middlemen, confirm it by going online to view their paychecks.
Too radical? Florida, Missouri and Oklahoma already do it.
http://fora.tv/2008/09/02/The_Importance_of_Government_Transparency
Campaign for Liberty: Rally for the Republic
Sep 2nd, 2008
Time for Vermont to open up the books!
Posted by: Hunter Melville | September 08, 2008 at 04:57 PM
I don't know much about this Transparency Movement but I do for a fact that in the past the VT-NEA did know about a public meeting that was going on at least 6 days before it was to take place and was trying to get the troops out. I saw the email.
I had trouble finding out about this "public" hearing two days before it was to take place. I was standing IN the State House and STILL had trouble finding out about it. I could not get the details straight until the day before which left little time to get the "other side" to the public hearing.
As far as public records are concerned - people are too comfortable with email. Executive and legislative emails are public documents.
As an aside, school boards are warned they can't use this effective form of communication because of the open meeting law. I think this needs to change...
Posted by: Retta Dunlap | September 11, 2008 at 11:39 AM