Lifting the veil on sudden departures by government officials

August 26, 2013 ~ mncogi

By James Eli Shiffer, the Star Tribune’s watchdog and data editor, and brand-new COGI board member

Nine months after he arrived to run a 300-employee department for the city of Minneapolis, Gregory Stubbs abruptly quit. The City Council gave him $65,000 and gave the public no explanation.

The Star Tribune reporters who cover Minneapolis thought they had an easy way to find out why Stubbs left. They sent a public records request to the city invoking a new provision of the Data Practices Act designed to shed light on the departure of “public officials” who leave in the midst of scandal. The law had been changed following outrage over the pricy and unexplained severance package given to a school official in Burnsville.

But the city of Minneapolis had a surprising response: the city’s director of regulatory services isn’t a public official, as defined by the law. The Star Tribune went to IPAD for an opinion, and the agency agreed with the city. As it turns out, the law was drafted in such a way that it excluded most of Minneapolis’ top officials, including the police and fire chiefs. Reporter Eric Roper turned that situation to his advantage, writing a story about the loophole and getting a key lawmaker on the record that it would be changed.

The Legislature followed through this year by broadening the definition of “public official” to eliminate any doubt that it covered Minnesota’s largest city. In an era when lawmakers are making more and more exemptions to the Data Practices Act, this was one significant advance for the public’s right to know.

It took weeks before the Stubbs documents arrived at the Star Tribune. They were heavily redacted, but they documented the sex discrimination and ethics complaints that preceded Stubbs’ departure. On Aug. 23, nearly a year after we first asked for the records, the Star Tribune published the story on the metro cover.

I learned several lessons from this journey: Read the law. Hold lawmakers accountable for their pledge of openness. Keep up the pressure on governments to release records. And when you get the records, publish a story. It lets everybody know we mean business.

Health Care Exchange bill reviewed

February 8, 2013 ~ mncogi

On February 5th, the House Data Practices subcommittee reviewed several of the Open Meeting Law and Data Practices provisions of HF 5, the House version of the enabling legislation for the Minnesota Health Care Exchange.

Several days earlier, during a February 1st public hearing, the language of the bill drew criticism over a lack of specificity regarding data protections and/or data sharing. During that hearing, MNCOGI Board Member Don Gemberling testified about issues in the bill’s data provisions, and offered assistance to the Data Practices subcommittee to rework the language.

Rich Neumeister’s Open Secrets blog has a summary of recent activity with the bill.

House Civil Law Committee to hear HF 20 on January 22

January 21, 2013January 21, 2013 ~ mncogi

The Civil Law Committee of the Minnesota House of Representatives will hear testimony related to HF 20, Representative Freiberg’s bill relating to e-mail addresses submitted to governmental entities for “notification or informational purposes.” HF 20 would make such data “private data on individuals.” Currently, such data is public.

The committee hearing is scheduled to begin at 8:15am in the basement hearing room of the State Office Building.

Minnesota Legislature – Data Practices bills introduced January 16

January 21, 2013January 21, 2013 ~ mncogi

SF No. 43 – The bill would amend Chapter 13 so that “Government data of a political subdivision on requests for notices of services or activities of a political subdivision” would be “private data on individuals or nonpublic data.”

SF No. 60 – The bill is the Senate companion to HF No. 20. The bill proposes to keep e-mail addresses submitted to government entities “not public.”