SUMMER 2006 NEWSLETTER
GEORGIA FOI ACCESS
GEORGIA FIRST AMENDMENT FOUNDATION

GEORGIA FOI CONFIDENTIAL

Five cities, five counties, and four universities post bids on the state’s new Procurement Registry; pests scurry about in a Georgia dormitory, and a city needs an excavator

By Tom Bennett

Lilburn, Ga., May 31, 2006 – House Bill 833 of 2006 passed the House 166-0. However, publishers managed to stall in the Senate for now this measure that would move local government public-works advertisements onto the Georgia Procurement Registry, as well as keep them in legal organs.

The state Department of Administrative Services in Atlanta operates this "registry" on the Internet. The DOAS vows this will save Georgia taxpayers $149 million by 2009.

Were bids to lure online more of the 166 legal-notice types, publishers dependent upon legal-notice income would suffer. So, too, would the powerful county-seat law firms who are paid by the cities, counties, authorities and school board to write up the legal notices. These titans of Georgia small-town life could share in the loss of millions of dollars.

Already running counter to their local power structures are the cities Conyers, East Point, Milledgeville, Roswell and Sandy Springs. For example, East Point is looking for an emergency power generator for the fire department. Milledgeville needs a Trac Hoe, which is a machine that excavates dirt. The planned new city of Sandy Springs is shopping on the Procurement Registry for wrecker service.

Five counties out of 159 are taking advantage of this service so far. They are Cobb, Dawson, Fulton, Glynn and Hart. For example, Cobb needs a dump truck, Fulton a senior center, and Hart a new roof for the county library.

At the university level, you can see on the Registry how Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville is seeking bids for pest control in dormitories. Valdosta State University wants media equipment for the television station. The University of Georgia is calling for bids for janitorial service for the president’s home.

For now, it’s only a drop in the bucket. However, what a wealth of story ideas this Internet listing of statewide bids could provide for Georgia news directors and editors!

 IT ISN’T THE LAW FOR YOU TO WITHHOLD CERTAIN TITLE 50 RECORDS

With cleanup in 1981-82, the intent of the statute O.C. G.A. 50-18-72 became to define what IS NOT open – at least for the records addressed there in Title 50, and not scattered willy-nilly in 26 other titles of the law.

However, the statute doesn’t say that it’s illegal for you as a county clerk in South Georgia to disclose certain records. It doesn’t ominously raise the specter of dire circumstances for you if you do. It merely says that you "aren’t required" to give out to your citizens the few exempted records that are listed there.

Every one of the 1,000 or so Georgia agencies has a gatekeeper. He or she has the power to let in open government, or crush it like stepping on a June bug in a Georgia pasture with a brogan shoe. There is plenty of room for optimism, however. Every day, people age. Inevitably, the gatekeeper’s role in agency after agency will move to younger persons. They may not be as determined to hold onto hidebound methods established in the 1950s. These new gatekeepers may well ask the following question: If information is a click away on the Internet around the world, why not here in our town, our county and our school system?

IN THE MID-1990’s, a high-ranking Georgia court official on capitol hill in Atlanta fixed an interviewer with a penetrating gaze and said, "You know the courts are exempt from the records law, don’t you?"

However, on this morning of 2006, I see that Clerk Jay C. Stephenson’s Cobb County Superior Court database is inviting me and you to go on an extended search. It will be a revealing and newsworthy trip. It will take us through Cobb County’s court calendars, court case docket, real estate filing, fees, indexes and images, real estate hazardous sites, court fees, real estate indexes and images, courts terms, family violence services, location and hours of the court, the staff members, their telephone directory and notary public information.

"The electronic records available on this site are the same as the official electronic records kept in the clerk’s office, located in the courthouse in Marietta, Ga.," states this groundbreaking site. It is a harbinger of the future of efficient disclosure by U.S. superior courts.

IN 1999, THE UGA police chief permitted an open-government surveyor to make at breakneck pace a request; hear a reply; and be shown the door. "We’re trying to comply with the law" to provide daily campus crime logs, said the chief. When we later planned the post-survey publication of the survey results, our photographer got in to see the chief. Nervous and uncertain, the photographer was permitted eight snaps with his camera before he, too, was invited to leave.

 However, this morning you can read YESTERDAY’S daily crime log for UGA. It is being posted there each day by some dedicated Security Dept. employee, who works in that little building just off the west end zone of Sanford Stadium.

Today is May 31, 2006. A criminal trespass incident occurred sometime May 26-30 on the North Campus Deck when a callbox was damaged. In addition, a theft by deception incident occurred sometime May 8-30. However, the site comments, "The money ($11) was refunded."

IT’S ALLRIGHT TO FAX YOUR VIEWS ON HEALTH CARE IN DOUGHERTY COUNTY

Judge Harry Altman of the Dougherty County Superior Court has thrown out criminal charges against Charles Rehberg and Dr. John Bagnato, according to Staff Writer Andy Miller in the May 3, 2006 Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Rehberg and Batnato criticized the financial practices of Phoebe Putney Health System in anonymous faxes they sent in 2003 and 2004.