Four Pennsylvania government Web sites were named winners of the "Sunny Award" today, marking them as some of the best state and local government Websites for transparency by Sunshine Review, a pro transparency organization.

The Pennsylvania winners are Avon Grove School District, Brandywine Heights Area School District, Philadelphia County and the state Web site.

From a Sunshine Review press release:

Award winners are among only 39 Web sites in America earning an "A" transparency grade from more than 5,000 analyzed. Sunshine Review's "Transparency Checklist" analyzes Web sites for information about budgets, meetings, elected and administrative officials, permits and zoning, audits, contracts, lobbying, public records, and taxes. The "Checklist" measures what content is available on government websites against what should be provided.

"Sunny Award winners deserve recognition for making information available to citizens and for setting a transparency standard that all governments can, and should, meet," said Mike Barnhart, president of Sunshine Review. "Access to information empowers every citizen to hold government officials accountable for the conduct of the public's business and the spending of taxpayers' money. Official accountability is the corner stone of self government and liberty."

Sunshine Review is a non-profit organization dedicated to state and local government transparency. The Sunshine Review wiki collects and shares transparency information and uses a 10-point "Transparency Checklist" to evaluate the content of every state and more than 5,000 local government websites. Sunshine Review collaborates with individuals and organizations throughout America in the cause of an informed citizenry and an accountable government.

Since its inception in 2008, Sunshine Review has analyzed the Web sites of all 50 states, more than 3,140 counties, 805 cities, and 1,560 school districts.

For more information, visit www.sunshinereview.org

The Democratic majority in Congress continues to reject calls to actually read bills before voting on them.

From Robert Romano of the NetRight Nation Blog:

If a growing number of House members that signed a discharge petition for H. Res. 554 have their way, every single bill in Congress will be held for least 72 business hours Monday through Friday (excluding holidays) prior to passage for a mandatory review by each house.

The discharge petition initiated by Congressman Greg Walden (R-OR2) has obtained 182 signatures, including the bill's sponsor, Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA3). Walden did so on the same day the Senate Finance Committee explicitly voted against allowing 72 hours to review ObamaCare once it was finally written.

Only 7 of Pennsylvania's 19 House members have signed the petition: Reps. Charlie Dent, Bill Shuster, Glenn Thompson, Todd Platts, Joe Pitts, Jim Gerlach and Tim Murphy. All 7 are Republicans.

What about your member of Congress? What are they hiding? Why do they want to rush through votes before anyone has a chance to read the bill?

For a complete list of the members of Congress who signed the petition, click here.

Do you get the feeling members of Congress don't know what they're voting on?

The Institute for Policy Innovation has joined the Sunlight Foundation in the "Read the Bill" initiative designed to educate the public on the importance of Congress posting all proposed legislation online "to ensure both elected officials and citizens have the chance to read and understand legislation 72 hours before it is debated."

From an Institute for Policy Innovation release:

"Forty-two and a half seconds per page -- that's how long members of Congress were given to read, understand, evaluate and consider all the implications for the largest spending bill in history - the so-called 'stimulus' package," said Bartlett Cleland, director of the IPI Center for Technology Freedom.

"Even worse, the public never had a chance to access the language of the bill before passage," said Cleland.

Unfortunately, the recent stimulus bill was not the first legislation to fly through Congress with hardly a review. Too much groundbreaking legislation has done the same over the years with little to no time for a responsible, thorough assessment.

"By definition this is information that we, the people, own -- not to mention that we also pay for the repercussions," said Cleland.

For more information on "Read the Bill," visit www.ReadTheBill.org

For more on the Institute for Public Innovation, follow the link below:

Institute for Policy Innovation: Let Us Read the Bill

Those very helpful folks at The Commonwealth Foundation have launched a new Web site to help Pennsylvania residents keep an eye on the state Legislature.

PennsylvaniaVotes.org provides "concise, non-partisan, plain-English descriptions of every bill and vote in the Pennsylvania House and Senate," according to the site.

Visitors can search bills and votes by legislator, category or keyword.

Guests can also post comments about bills and discuss other state policy issues on the Web sites' forums. People have already left comments on Judicial Elections, Transparency and Mandatory Minimum Sentencing.

PennsylvaniaVotes.org also features handy links to other Web sites that offer information about public policy issues.

A lot of people have the mistaken impression that Pennsylvania's new open-records law is intended to help make the lives of newspaper reporters easier.

The law that went into effect Jan. 1 can benefit every Pennsylvania resident who demands government accountability.

It is designed to give every Pennsylvania citizen access to their government, whether it's at the local, county or state level.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette offers some good examples of how everyday citizens can put the new law to good use:

Did you miss a meeting of your township supervisors? If they make audiotapes, those are considered open records, so you should be able to listen to a recording.

Did it seem as if it took the fire truck a long time to reach the scene of a calamity? Emergency 911 time response logs are public records, which should reflect the time of a call and the time the unit was dispatched, for example.

Which intersections are considered the most dangerous? The state Department of Transportation maintains a list, and that's a public record.

Curious about the background of city employees? Their applications and resumes should be public documents.

Read the full editorial, "Open state: A citizens' guide to Pennsylvania's new records law," at the newspaper's Web site.

And don't forget to bookmark the Web site of the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records, http://openrecords.state.pa.us/

The Pennsylvania Office of Open Records is open for business.

"Ensuring open and honest government is a bedrock principle of democracy," says Office of Open Records Executive Director Terry Mutchler. "It can only be attained through the unfettered exchange of information between citizens and their government."

Spend some time at the new Office of Open Records Web site and familiarize yourself with the new law. Pennsylvania residents will determine how effective the new law will become. Arm yourself with knowledge and prepare to defend your rights.

In order for the new law to have teeth behind it, citizens must utilize it against secretive government agencies and bureaucrats. Make Terry Mutchler your new best friend.

The Web site is located at http://openrecords.state.pa.us/

Not everyone is overjoyed with Pennsylvania's new open-records law, which kicks in Jan. 1, 2009.

While many within the state have praised the new Right-To-Know Law, an expert in open government from a neighboring state isn't ready to pop the champagne.

"I don't think that this is a panacea," Robert Freeman, executive director of the New York Committee on Open Government, told the Elmira Star Gazette. "It may be an improvement, but there are in my opinion lots of areas in which the law could have been drafted more effectively."

Freeman told the newspaper that Pennsylvania's new law leaves too many exceptions.

Freeman compared the Pennsylvania law with an existing one in New York and found several exemptions in the Keystone State law that N.Y. doesn't have:

* Complaints submitted to an agency, work papers underlying an audit, draft minutes and other records. In disclosing complaints, New York agencies can withhold the name.

* Pennsylvania exempts performance evaluations and the employment application of someone not hired by an agency. In New York, some information on a performance evaluation and an employment application can be withheld, Freeman said.

* The Pennsylvania law states that it does not supersede or modify the public or nonpublic nature of a record established in federal or state law, by regulation or judicial order or decree. New York law covers exemptions under statutes but not agency regulations.

Read the full story at the newspaper's Web site.

The newspaper editorialized about the new Pennsylvania law, saying it's a step in the right direction:

But considering that Pennsylvania has had some of the weakest Freedom of Information laws in the land for more than 50 years, this seems like a good start.

It's now up to the public agencies to abide by the new law and the Office of Open Records to truly advocate for the public's right to know.

Read the full editorial at the newspaper's Web site.

Below is the first press release from the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records. I hope it will be the first of many to come as Pennsylvania ushers in a new era of openness and accountability in government.

OPEN RECORDS OFFICE SETS RIGHT-TO-KNOW FEE STRUCTURE

HARRISBURG -- Citizens will pay between 10 cents and 25 cents per page for public records under a fee structure established by the new Office of Open Records, Executive Director Terry Mutchler announced Monday.

"The fee structure established by our office is a reasonable way to ensure citizens have meaningful access to the records of their government and that public bodies are able to recoup the actual cost of the copies," Mutchler said.

The Right-To-Know law, signed by Gov. Edward G. Rendell on February 14, 2008, established the Office of Open Records to implement and enforce the Act. The law, which fully becomes effective January 1, 2009, charged the Office of Open Records with establishing fees pursuant to a right-to-know request.

Under the fee structure, a Commonwealth or Local Agency will be permitted to charge only the actual cost of reproduction for blue-prints, color copies, odd-sized materials and downloading records to computerized discs.

An agency may not charge citizens for the time it takes to determine whether the record is a public record. An agency may not charge for searching or retrieving the documents. An agency also may not charge staff time or salary for complying with a right-to-know request, and an agency is precluded from charging fees to redact, or black out, information that is exempt under the law.

"Nationally, duplication fees are one of the most abused areas of any government access law and, quite often, high fees are just another way to deny citizens access to their government," Mutchler said. "This fee structure guards against that."

Citizens also can choose to inspect records rather than obtain copies, under the law.

The Office of Open Records encouraged Judicial and Legislative agencies, which can set their own fees, to adopt the fee structure set by the Office of Open Records to promote uniformity throughout the Commonwealth.

The complete fee structure and information related to the Office of Open Records and the new law can be found at http://openrecords.state.pa.us

At what point did we stop having a "government of the people, by the people, for the people"?

When did government become the enemy of the people?

A new study says 38 of the 50 states earned an "F" grade when it came to requests for public information under the Freedom of Information Act. The other 12 received grades of "D" or "C" but no state earned high marks. Incredible.

Government has set up a system to prevent citizens from gaining access to basic information about how the government works.

Follow the link below for more information.

Freedom of Information Standards Failed by 38 States

The state's biggest newspaper recently published an editorial about a move in the state Legislature to allow government entities to place public meeting notices and other legal advertisements in shopping circulars and online instead of newspapers with widespread circulation in a community.

It's another effort by politicians to keep residents in the dark. For every door that opens on Pennsylvania's antiquated Sunshine Law, another one closes.

Politicians want residents to remain in the dark so they don't see how tax dollars are spent.

"The biggest and most important issue is the public's right to know and how best to get the information distributed to the broadest audience," The Philadelphia Inquirer writes. "Newspapers face many challenges these days, but they remain the cheapest and most reliable way to keep the public informed."

Tell you legislator to start working on real problems like property taxes, repairing roads and bridges and providing affordable health care instead of spending time on something that doesn't need fixing.

Read the full editorial, "Public Notices: Keep them where the audience is," here.