Amendment X: Sexting in Washington State

The latest threat to our children that the evening news says we should worry about is sexting; teenagers using cell phones to act like teenagers. It turns out that a Freedom of Information Act request in Washington State found that the epidemic of sexting has spread to City Councilors using their government emails.

Kirkland City Councilman Bob Sternoff used city e-mail resources while the council was in session to conduct an intimate personal relationship with his girlfriend, recently released city documents disclose.

From May of this year until early this month, Sternoff, who was divorced 15 years ago, sent scores of messages, some of them sexually explicit, to the woman. In addition, many messages in the same e-mail threads contained disparaging comments about fellow council members and un-named members of the public who attended city council meetings.

The e-mails were released simultaneously to the full city council and a Kirkland blogger as well as to the Evergreen Freedom Foundation. EFF is electing not to publish them due to their explicit nature and to protect the privacy of Sternoff’s girlfriend, who is not a public figure.

Public officials behave differently when they know their constituents are watching. I'm sure Councilman Sternoff has learned that lesson well. Kirkland officials may now be less likely to treat public resources as their own private property.

Amendment X: Freedom of Information in Texas

Congratulations to our friends at Texas Watchdog, no relation, and reporter Jennifer Peebles.

Capitolbeat’s 2009 John Aubuchon Freedom of Information Award went to Jennifer Peebles of TexasWatchDog.org, for pursuing ethics disclosures from state legislators and then posting them online with an interactive map.

Texas Watchdog, and other independant investigative reporters like us, is founded on the radical principle that when the public has good information, government makes better policy decisions. Congratulations to Jennifer and company. You continue to be an inspiration to us all.

Amendment X: Freedom of Information Act in Colorado

Our colleagues at the Independence Institute in Colorado have found that state agencies have employed a new tactic to get around those pesky Freedom Of Information Act requests; charge prohibitive fees to provide public records.

Shepherd has no complaints about most of the agencies. For instance, the Northeastern Colorado Association of Local Governments in Fort Morgan sent him packets of information for each employee hired with the cash. In contrast, Northwest shipped blank bid packets, and when he e-mailed about seeing the winning and losing bids, he was told this data could only be compiled at a cost of $55 an hour -- and personnel anticipated that it would take four-to-eight hours of work to do it.

At first, he didn't smack the panic button. "It's always been my experience that the price of open records is negotiable," he says, adding, "I'm typically charged $12 to $20 an hour for open-records requests -- and usually the first half-hour or hour is free before the clock starts running." So he suggested via e-mail that they try to compromise -- but he didn't receive a reply until he followed up with a note revealing that he planned to discuss the situation on KHOW radio (which he did yesterday). Instead of caving, however, the Northwest respondent simply explained that the cost was based on contract charges and couldn't be reduced. Along the way, Shepherd contacted GEO press liaison Todd Hartman asking if that agency could help both parties find a middle ground. Nope: Hartman said the matter was between Shepherd and Northwest.

I recommend the entire article. The level of hubris from minor government officials is astounding.