When Robert Garcia ran for city council in 2009, he pledged he would (to quote from his Website) “mak[e] our city government more open and accessible to the people we serve.” To that end, he has consistently posted his calendar online, as well as leading the City to make software available to all elected officials that makes their official calendar available for public viewing online (i.e., if they choose to participate).1 He has also helped bring about an ordinance requiring greater disclosure of lobbyist activity.
While all this is admirable, a question that (re)occurred to me recently is: Why hasn’t the greatest transparency in government possible been the status quo, and why isn’t it the status quo now?
I was put in mind of this while gathering information to evaluate claims made by Councilmembers DeLong, O’Donnell, and Schipske about how vocal their constituents have been in opposition of medpot collectives.2 In the course of doing so I had some questions for Schipske regarding comments she had made in reply e-mails to constituents—questions that did not, and could not—arise with DeLong and O’Donnell because, at least based on what I’ve seen, they do not personally answer their e-mails, whereas Schipske often does.
Additionally, Schipske endeavored to answer my questions despite knowing3 that I have not exactly been a fan of her work on medpot.
I imagine I’m not the only Long Beach resident to feel that personally answering e-mails and being accessible to the press are behaviors to be praised—even if perhaps they are behaviors we have a right to expect—because they help create transparency in government.
In response to our discussions, on her blog Schipske addressed just that transparency issue. And while Schipske ought not to pat herself on the back for having “complied with the [Public Records Act] request as we always do”—you are required to do so by law, Councilmember; your compliance is not optional—she does raise fair points about how being transparent can raise difficulties for government officials.4
Then there’s the matter of being open with the press. There is no law requiring public officials to talk to the press, and so when they do, oftentimes it is simply when they wish to use the Fourth Estate as a tool to influence public opinion or otherwise forward their agenda.5
The value of discussing governmental matters in a public forum is obvious. In a very real sense, our public officials work for us—and so we have every right to expect them to be transparent in their actions, both so that we can hold them accountable and let them know when we agree or disagree with the way they are representing us, and so we can make informed decisions of whether to retain them in office or opt for somebody new.
On their end, our public officials should not be doing or saying anything in their capacities as our representatives that they would not fain have seen in the proverbial light of day. They should make a publicly accessible cyber/paper trail of more or less everything they do;6 they should talk to the press beyond trying to make themselves look good. When they don’t, they are, either actively or by omission, attempting to reduce their accountability.
It’s okay to disagree and to be disagreed with. That state of affairs is pretty much built into any non-totalitarian political system. But maneuvering to keep the populace from knowing whether we disagree with you means you care about keeping your job more by way of controlling perceptions than by means of your competence and service.
Our government officials were not elected and appointed to get re-elected and reappointed: they were put in their positions to serve. And transparency is a public service, one that the We the People are owed.
Footnotes
1Councilmembers Garcia, DeLong, Schipske, Andrews, Gabelich, and Neal post their calendars online; Mayor Foster and Councilmembers Lowenthal, O’Donnell, and Johnson do not do so, nor did they reply to invitations to comment on why not.
2The documented answer is “not very” in two of the three cases. Read about that here.
3She had to know—because doesn’t everybody read this column?
4As a case in point, you might have heard of this little thing called WikiLeaks.
5And perhaps too frequently the media play along, licking up whatever crumbs government officials let fall from their policy table, not considering that the meat may not be being shared.
6An issue that falls under this aspect of my topic is government officials—including Garcia, Schipske, and Mayor Foster—who maintain .com (as opposed to .gov) Websites and e-mail accounts used for more than just their personal lives.
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