How City Councilors keep public information away from citizens.

How City Councilors keep public information away from citizens.

Proper tracking of all the Councilors at Boston City Council isn't made easy for interested citizenry.

What's problematical about Boston City Council are the public records of this city council are kept at too long an arms reach for any interested citizen to read. For example Boston City Council applies the maximun allowable fees under Massachusetts public records laws http://www.sec.state.ma.us/arc/arcrmu/rmuidx.htm And the maximum allowable fees are assessed at each step of retrieval of the public record enquiry violating the spirit of open government FOI freedom of information public records principles. It's a loophole in law that allows custodians of public records to keep a public record out of reach for citizens' ordinary household budgets.

see also
http://anopenbostoncitycouncil.blogspot.com

Charges are assessed for retrieval of the public record at the prorated hourly wage of the lowest paid employee who is capable of performing the task http://www.sec.state.ma.us/pre/prepdf/guide.pdf More charges are added for making paper copies even for electronic public records. Then more charges are added for redacting http://www.sec.state.ma.us/pre/prepdf/pubreclaw.pdf

Compare the 17F Order of Boston City Council.
"SECTION 17F. Requests for Specific Information. The city council at any time may request from the mayor specific information on any municipal matter within its jurisdiction, and may request his presence to answer written questions relating thereto at a meeting to be held not earlier than one week from the date of the receipt of said questions, in which case the mayor shall personally, or through a head of a department or a member of a board, attend such meeting and publicly answer all such questions. The person so attending shall not be obliged to answer questions relating to any other matter. The mayor at any time may attend and address the city council in person or through the head of a department, or a member of a board, upon such subject as he may desire. [Acts of 1951, c. 376, s. 1.17F]"
17F of Chapter 452 of the Acts of 1948
http://www.cityofboston.gov/Images_Documents/Boston%20City%20Charter_tcm3-18855.pdf
http://www.cityofboston.gov/Images_Documents/2007%20the%20charter%20draft20%20(final%20draft1%20with%20jumps)_tcm3-16428.pdf

What's needed are reviews and amendments of all applicable Massachusetts Sunshine open public meeting laws and FOI freedom of information public records laws. A public records commission is needed. Attorneys in the offices of the Secretary of the Commonwealth and in the offices of the Attorney General http://mass.gov/ago/openmeetings that review/enforce public records and open meetings appeals need to be given a title of Administrative Judge.

Skilled, talented Boston City Council staff and new technology.

Among the 100 or so Boston City Council staff where are there people with the talents and skills for making the more effective use of new technology that communicates the proceedings and activities of the Councilors? For too long the City Council has been behind the curve with out of date stenographic services, out of date stenographic machine, uninformed attitudes toward free software http://fsf.org A more up to date Boston City Council would make use of free software City of Boston government could lead other cities governments by getting up to date technology, up to date software for communicating the important efforts of the Councilors. Advanced use of technology would serve the interest of the City Council in balancing the power of the Mayor's Offices.

Ellen M. Fritch and Associates, City Stenographer
373 Silver Street
Boston MA 02127
tel 617 269-5448
emfritch at aol.com
http://www.findacourtreporter.net/index.php?page=detail&get_id=11071

The Honorable William Francis Galvin
Massachusetts Archives Records Management Unit
Office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Terry French, Records Analyst
tel 617 727-2816 x259
fax 617-288-8429
terry.french at sec.state.ma.us
http://www.sec.state.ma.us/arc/arcrmu/rmuidx.htm

Dear City Stenographer,

Please keep the original stenographic machine record, a public record at City Hall. Don't remove the original stenographic machine record from City Hall. A copy of the original can be used for editing.

Examples of historic preservation of a few of the previous years of this significant public record, the stenographic machine record, are kept by the Boston City Clerk at the City Archives http://www.cityofboston.gov/archivesandrecords/ and at Special Collections Department of Boston Public Library http://www.bpl.org/research/special/collections.htm