The office of Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt is proposing a special two-person unit within his agency devoted solely to investigating Kansas Open Meetings Act and Kansas Open Records Act complaints. The measure has the support of the Kansas Press Association. Doug Anstaett, the organization's executive director, told a legislative committee Tuesday that housing an open government unit within the attorney general's office would send a message that such complaints are a high priority. read more ...

The state of Connecticut’s official website will soon undergo a major modernization process under a self-funded plan that is intended to “increase usability, customer service, transparency and access for its visitors,” according to ...

From the Aspen Daily News:  A judge will decide in the coming months if the city of Aspen should pay a local woman’s attorneys nearly $350,000 for their work in an open-records lawsuit or whether that amount is, as the city contends, “outrageous.” Chief Judge James Boyd of the 9th Judicial District on Friday heard arguments from City Attorney Jim True and the Denver attorneys for Marilyn Marks, Robert McGuire and Jeffrey Bains. After losing the mayoral election to former Mayor Mick Ireland in 2009, Marks filed a lawsuit that sought, under the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA), the release ...

Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request, the IRS has released a series of documents, including training materials used by agents relating to how it recognizes and treats exempt organizations like nonprofits. The FOIA request was made by ...

From the Boulder Weekly: A recent hearing related to the bungled Broomfield election made it clear that some public officials — even judges — still just don’t get it when it comes to coughing up open records. Election reform activist Marilyn Marks, who has exposed many untoward practices — like using ballots that can be traced back to individual voters — got dragged into court by Broomfield officials after she had the gall to ask for public election records, including voted ballots. Since it’s costly to hire an attorney for such proceedings, it’s a pretty effective form of intimidating citizens ...

From The Denver Post: The Littleton School District needs to step up and begin talking about what happened in the months before 18-year-old Karl Pierson stormed into Arapahoe High School on Dec. 13, firing a pump-action shotgun that killed 17-year-old Claire Davis before killing himself. For more than a month, district and school officials have refused to talk to reporters about the events, referring all open records requests for even basic information to their lawyers. On Thursday and Friday, the district maintained its silence even after school security guard Cameron Rust posted a lengthy diatribe against Arapahoe High officials, alleging ...

From The Denver Post YourHub: After two public ballot initiatives passed this fall, Littleton and its city council feels at least one of them will make it more difficult and expensive to conduct the city's business. The measure with the most impact reduces reasons for going into executive session, or behind closed doors, from six to two. Those two are if executive session is required by federal or state law, such as in the case of a terrorist attack, or the need to confer with an attorney for a legal matter, such as a lawsuit. But Littleton City Manager Michael ...

From The Denver Post: A bill to strengthen Colorado's shield law is a long time coming but so is an update to the antiquated law that offers no protection to bloggers. Sen. Bernie Herpin, R-Colorado Springs, is sponsoring a bill to make it tougher to put reporters on the stand in Colorado. Herpin conjured the bill after realizing Fox News reporter Jana Winter may not have been afforded protection under Colorado's law. She could have been forced to decide between jail or revealing who told her about contents of a notebook from Aurora theater shooting suspect James Holmes. Thankfully, a ...

From The Tribune (Greeley):  By Ben DeGrow The Independence Institute Colorado potentially faces a wasted opportunity in undertaking a push for greater school financial transparency. If state leaders talk up transparency as a new project and in vague terms, then they may miss the benefit of lessons already learned and fail to create a genuinely useful online tool. Part of Amendment 66’s billion-dollar promise was the creation of a website to track nearly every tax dollar collected and spent in K-12 public education. However, an overwhelming majority of voters sent the initiative to the ash heap. During last week’s State ...

From The Gazette (Colorado Springs): Moving Sky Sox baseball stadium downtown no longer is part of the City for Champions plan but all information gathered to support that project is locked away. Colorado Spring’s city attorney will not release the results of a community survey taken by the city last summer to gauge public interest in a downtown baseball stadium even though plans to move Sky Sox stadium downtown were dumped in December. In October, City Attorney Chris Melcher said the results of the survey were being kept secret and considered to be a “work product.” He denied the Gazette’s request, ...