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SPRING 2007 NEWSLETTER Georgia First Amendment Foundation receives $100,000 in new funding to work for greater open government in Georgia This money will help take Georgia FOI education "to the next level" By Tom Bennett Decatur, Ga., April 26, 2007 – The Georgia First Amendment Foundation has received $100,000 in additional funding to expand its education program for open government. The gifts being announced today are: "This generous matching grant will allow the foundation, after its beginning years, to move to the next level," said Hollie Manheimer, executive director of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation. "The generosity of all of the donors will allow GFAF to make an even larger impact in educating Georgians on important freedom of information issues. We are very, very grateful." This money is over and above what has been raised so far by GFAF in its lifeline, the annual Charles L. Weltner Freedom of Information Banquet. The banquet is six years old, occurs each January, and has netted annual amounts ranging from $23,000 to $61,000. The Georgia First Amendment Foundation is 13 years old and is headquartered in Decatur. It created the Georgia FOI Access newsletter in 1994; named Manheimer its first and only part-time executive director in 1996; and founded the web site www.graf.org in 1997. Its library of resources for citizens keeps growing and it as deep and varied as any state open-government non-profit’s resource click in the nation, with the exception of Virginia’s.GFAF launched the Weltner banquet in 2002, creating Georgia’s first social event solely for celebrating open government since James Oglethorpe founded the colony. This foundation suggested the open-government mediation program now in place in the Georgia attorney general's office. It created with A.G. Thurbert Baker, and together they keep updating, the library of open-government guides called the red, blue and green books. The red has the Georgia Open Meetings and Open Records acts; the blue is a groundbreaking first-ever guide to law enforcement open government in the state; and the green, debuting last year, does the same for public schools’ open government. GFAF and Georgia AP combined to lead the only survey of open-government compliance in the state's history in 1999, establishing a basis from which to proceed and place emphasis in open government advocacy. Police and schools finished far back in compliance rates. An analysis of bills called "Legislative Watch" is published on this web site during the 40 days of the January-to-March General Assembly session. It is for citizens who want greater access, and to try to understand what the Assembly is doing each year to wreck it. "Legislative Watch" seeks to build opposition to the mountain of open-government exemptions being piled up in the Assembly (there now are at least 155). This click on www.gfaf.org seeks to expose the mounting number of exemptions, even if this publicity about them might lead to reprisals against the lucrative newspaper legal notices. In an era of worldwide electronic communication via computers, those century-old paper notices still cost Georgia citizens hundreds of millions of dollars a year – hundreds of millions of dollars -- in county-seat lawyer and newspaper fees.The foundation leads open government workshops across Georgia for citizens, public officials and the media. A Spartan approach to spending of limited funding is followed. For example, the table tents and the podium sign for GFAF’s Weltner banquet are carefully saved each year, so it will not have to buy new ones from Fast Signs. Tom Bennett is a retired Atlanta newsman who writes about open-government issues for Georgia FOI Access. |
