Monday, May 4, 2009

Campaign Talk - Open Government

You may be hearing some campaign talk about Open Government from the Forks Township Supervisor candidates. The following are  portions of my October 2007 blog entry.  As you can see, I have been advocating open government for many years.


Open Government is the ability of our township residents to have easy access to our local leadership, critical documents, and how our township operates on a daily basis. In other words, create a level of transparency between the Board of Supervisors, township operations and our residents.

For example, a Government that practices open access requires having all public documents on our web site, providing a free copy of the Comprehensive plan to our residents, easy access to developers’ proposals that affect our way of life, public display of all traffic studies, and access to the annual budget in a timely manner.

Each of the critical service organizations (Police, Fire, and EMS) should make a yearly report to the township residents to improve our understanding of these critical services and how we benefit as a community from these dedicated professionals. Yes, I will broach the unthinkable -- broadcasting our Board of Supervisor (BoS) meetings on the local cable community outlet channels. At least, the Supervisors should web cast all its BoS meetings on the township web site.

Additionally, I believe we should have occasional Board of Supervisor, Planning Commission, and Zoning meetings on Saturdays to increase the visibility of these critical boards and commissions to our community. Town hall meetings should become a norm in our township not just a campaign slogan.

It is very important that we proactively reach out to residents to get ideas on critical township issues. If you have any ideas or comments about critical issues facing Forks Township, please share your ideas via our blog.

Get Involved –Every Vote Counts!

 

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