June 4, 2008

An outrageous change in open government law

It turns out that a pretty good legal argument exists for keeping secret the proposals received by the Bristol Downtown Development Authority and any other "public agency" that doesn't want the responses to its requests for proposals circulating to the public.
In 2007, the state legislature added an exemption to the open records law that allows officials to keep the responses secret "provided the chief executive officer of such public agency certifies that the public interest" in disclosing them is outweighed by the need to keep them secret.
What that means is that bid responses can be kept confidential if a secretive mayor wants them to be. It means that the government can treat bid responses the same way it treats internal security audits or the home addresses of corrections officers.
It's absolutely wrong.
I don't know exactly what the arguments were made in the legislature to allow this change or who voted for it, but I'm going to explore that. We can't just sit back and allow government to lock away more and more of the information we need.
By the way, we still don't have the entire document that was submitted for the downtown site. The final appendix remains off-limits, though I do have an Freedom of Information request pending.

For those interested,
here are the allowed exemptions to the FOI, including this one:

(24) Responses to any request for proposals or bid solicitation issued by a public agency or any record or file made by a public agency in connection with the contract award process, until such contract is executed or negotiations for the award of such contract have ended, whichever occurs earlier, provided the chief executive officer of such public agency certifies that the public interest in the disclosure of such responses, record or file is outweighed by the public interest in the confidentiality of such responses, record or file.

Update:
It sailed through the legislature's committees, as part of a larger measure called Substitute Senate Bill No. 1182, AN ACT CONCERNING ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS, AUDITING OF LARGE CONSTRUCTION CONTRACTS, ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW OF CERTAIN LAND TRANSFERS, GRANT PAYMENTS TO MUNICIPALITIES, ADVERTISING ON STATE BUILDINGS AND CERTAIN EXEMPTIONS TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT.:

Here are links to the bill's whole history, including roll call lists that show all of Bristol's legislators voted for it.

Maybe someone else will have some luck figuring out how come they made the change. I can't find anything at all that explains the thinking. Reading through testimony and transcripts, it seems at first glance anyway, that this thing got stuck in there and just sailed right through. I have no idea who did it or why.

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Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is what is called a "rat" that is hidden in a bill

Anonymous said...

Hello Steven ..... Welcome to our beloved Blue State of Connecticut where Democrats rule and Democracy suffers .

Anonymous said...

The GAE Committee report sheds at least some light on the origin of the exemption. According to the report, the commissioner of the state DPW testified in favor of the bill and pointed out that "the release of certain information will have a negative impact on the state's bargaining position and may result in the state taxpayers having to pay a higher price for the goods or services being negotiated and that this bill seeks to provide a temporary exemption from FOIA until negotiations are complete and a contract is executed."

Anonymous said...

God forbid you have to get off your couch and actually work a story, Steve. Quit whining.

Steve Collins said...

OK, I'll at least give some passing thought to trying to work on this downtown plan story.

Anonymous said...

God forbid you have to get off your couch and actually work a story, Steve. Quit whining.

June 4, 2008 11:07 PM

God forbid YOU actually did anything except lob potshots at a guy who is doing his best to expose what could be a disasterous situation for the city. Why don't you get up from your computer screen and pick up some litter or something else constructive, like good citizens do?