With a planned discussion of a recent citizen survey and a presentation of what could be the final draft of a new ordinance, the Shoreline City Council March 19 is poised to move one step closer to a scheduled vote March 26 to ban all tobacco use in all parts of all the city’s parks and other city outdoor recreation spaces. Enforcement would be voluntary, by parks patrons, not police, and city costs for signs would range from $3,000 to $5,000. Although almost 70 percent of respondents in the online survey supported the proposed blanket smoking ban in Shoreline city parks facilities, comments varied widely. In a special information packet on the policy, for the council’s review March 19, city staff provide the survey results including a broad sampling of residents reactions; while also sharing the proposed final draft of the smoke-free parks ordinance.

In the non-scientific survey accessed at the city’s Web site, ban opponents argued that smoking is legal, not very harmful outdoors, and that peer-to-peer enforcement would be risky. Among their comments:

In 1972 Washington state voters were concerned about government accountability and ethics for a wide variety of reasons, some emanating from within the state and some from without. As a result they approved Initiative 276, creating an initial version of what is now the state’s Public Records Act, as well as the state Open Meetings Act and the state Public Disclosure Commission. The PDC daylights and regulates campaign contributions to and financial interests of elected officials. The successful citizen activists who launched and propelled the I-276 campaign later morphed into what is now the Washington Coalition For Open Government.

This past Saturday March 10, WACOG held a conference looking at the impetus leading to I-276’s passage, while also celebrating the present-day successes of citizen activists for public transparency, and looking at what the future holds. I was honored to be part of that latter panel on behalf of the 501c3 Public Eye Northwest and our Public Data Ferret project. Other guests were civic apps developer Ram Arumugan of Cascade Software Corporation; City of Seattle CIO/CTO Bill Schrier; and TVW President and CEO Greg Lane. Moderator was Mike Fancher – Vice President of WACOG and former Seattle Times Executive Editor.

Right below we’ve got the full 60-minute video of that forum, as aired on TVW, Washington state’s non-profit public affairs TV channel. Fancher began by framing the conversation in the context of the Knight Commission’s special report in 2010, “Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy In The Digital Age,” which he helped author. Among the findings that still resonate strongly, he said, are that:

• “…the information health of communities is as vital as safe streets, clean air, good schools and a vibrant economy, but…we don’t tend to think of information health in that way;” and,
• “…the same technology that is disrupting professional media and causing the loss of so many journalistic resources in so many communities is also creating great opportunities for journalism and democracy.”

Here’s the video on the panel looking at open government’s future, including the role of technology and new media.

TVW has also posted the video of the day’s panel, “Open Government’s Past: Birth and Survival of I-276.” It features David Ammons, former AP Olympia Bureau reporter and now communications chief for Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed; Karen Hildt, widow of I-276 campaign leader Michael Hildt; and former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton.

RELATED:

Ram Arumugan, Cascade Software, “How Technology Should Be Used To Spur Open Government,” Geek Wire, March 11, 2012.

Matt Rosenberg, Amplify Accountability, Technology To Boost Open Government,” Knight Commission blog, March 12, 2012.

After she claimed she was forced to donate volunteer labor to a women’s sports officials association founded by her boss in King County government, a web designer in the Accountable Business Transformation unit of the county’s Department of Executive Services – Lynelle Hofman of Edmonds – lodged a formal ethics complaint with the King County Ombudsman’s Office and was fired the very same day by her division chief Mike Herrin.

The reason given was that she had accessed her supervisor’s computer about a month prior, to forward herself a series of emails between the supervisor and a personnel official about her pending request to be classified as an hourly employee so she could get paid for all hours she actually worked. Contemplated punishment for that action had ranged from a week’s suspension to worse, but had not been decided until several hours after Hofman formally lodged the ethics complaint against her supervisor in DES’s ABT sector, Cindy C-Wilson, of Shoreline.

Ombudsman finds against supervisor, who later resigns
C-Wilson (her last name) was found in a final report issued by the ombudsman’s office in late October to have violated the county’s ethics code by using her work computer to conduct a private business and by entering into a business relationship with a subordinate. C-Wilson voluntarily resigned in November, 2011, seven months after Hofman was discharged on the day of her complaint, April 6, 2011.

Hofman, now 44, subsequently lodged another complaint with the ombudsman’s office in September, of retaliatory firing. But in late January of this year the ombudsman’s office issued another report concluding the charge was not supported by a preponderance of evidence. The reports were obtained by Public Data Ferret using the Washington Public Records Act.

Don’t confuse government “open data” with open government, warn two graduate students from Princeton and Yale in a new paper. Harlan Yu and David Robinson say open data may actually improve government transparency but it also:

…might equally well refer to politically neutral public sector disclosures that are easy to reuse, (and) have nothing to do with public accountability. Today a regime can call itself “open” if it builds the right kind of web site — even if it does not become more accountable or transparent….Technology can make public information more adaptable, empowering third parties to contribute in exciting new ways across many aspects of civic life. But technological enhancements will not resolve debates about the best priorities for civic life, and enhancements to government services are no substitute for public accountability.

What open government needs to look like in the coming decade and beyond involves at least three core considerations: 1) inclusive dialog around potential changes to laws on open records and open meetings; 2) the melding of Internet and mobile technologies with ideals of government accountability; and 3) nourishment for a reformulated news and information ecosystem to fulfill the public interest with robust accountability-driven reporting, teaching and collaboration. We’re going to focus here mainly on 2), and a bit on 3).

Voluntary government disclosure is growing
Baseline voluntary government transparency utilizing the Internet has grown impressively. A wide array of meeting documents, special reports and data are routinely posted online by governments at all levels, in the U.S.

Saturday March 10 in Seattle during national Sunshine Week the Washington Coalition for Open Government hosts a day-long conference, “Open Government: Past, Present and Future.” More details on the event and registration here. Highlights include in-person stories of citizen activists from Lake Forest Park, Everett and Skamania County who used public records laws to daylight secrets about a government weapons cache, conflict of interest in a county auditor’s office, and a bogus charity. Panel discussions will look at lessons learned in the 40 years since passage of Washington State’s landmark open records initiative, and at the role of technology and community in open government, going forward.

In a ruling issued this week a state appeals court upheld the convictions for first-degree perjury, and gross misdemeanor counts of stalking and cyberstalking by a then-City of Seattle Parks and Recreation Department employee named Andre L. (Luis) Franklin, now 30. The case stemmed from what the appeals court ruling details as a sexually-themed online vendetta by Franklin against another city parks worker, a woman with whom he had been romantically involved.

But the story goes deeper. Although Franklin was placed on leave in late 2008 after the victim notified city personnel authorities and parks officials understood him to have admitted the cyberstalking; public records show he somehow landed another city job – as a painter for Seattle Public Utilities earning $57,464 base pay in 2009 and $63,739 gross pay in 2010. Though public records confirm he was paid for a full year’s work in 2009 as painter for SPU, Public Data Ferret has learned he did not actually begin working at SPU until December of 2009. In addition, his defense attorney Steven Witchley of Seattle confirms Franklin is currently employed in a temporary position as a solid waste inspector for SPU.

Delving into a hot-button topic about which they state all the science is distinctly not settled, a female-led team of researchers and doctors from the University of Washington in Seattle and the Seattle-based Group Health Cooperative HMO – in preliminary findings of a new study – report that for women aged 20 to 49, use of certain types of oral contraceptives within the previous year are “associated with particularly elevated risk” of being diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. The abstract-only findings were published online in mid-February in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention (link, screen shot.) The findings are also highlighted by Group Health at their Web site in a brief titled, “Taking newer birth control pills may be linked to a higher risk of breast cancer.”

The lead author, Elisabeth Beaber, a UW PhD candidate in epidemiology, declined to discuss the published first-stage research outcomes prior to further peer review. Meanwhile, Beaber was scheduled to give a presentation on the current report March 6 at the 2012 annual meeting of the American Society of Preventive Oncology in Washington D.C. as part of a session (referenced in the meeting agenda on p. 12) titled “Breast Cancer: Risk Prediction, Screening and Behavior Modification.”

The preliminary results of the study show that for women age 20 to 49, using within the last year an oral contraceptive formulation with high-dose estrogen or a progestin called ethynodial diacetate raises the odds ratios to 2.7 and 2.6, respectively, of being diagnosed with invasive breast cancer within that time frame – compared to women who do not use those formulations. An odds ratio of 1 represents no association.

According to a University of Washington internal audit report obtained by Public Data Ferret through the Washington Public Records Act, King County’s Harborview Medical Center – which is managed by the UW Medicine unit – last June 30 fired a recreational therapist in the Burn Therapy Department named Kim Beitelspacher after she misappropriated more than $17,000 from HMC’s petty cash account. She did this by getting approvals from an inattentive manager for double reimbursements of numerous portable DVD players she bought for recuperating burn patients. According to its web site Harborview is the sole Level 1 trauma and burn center for adults and children serving Washington, Alaska, Montana and Idaho.

Now, a state audit of the case is nearing completion
Responding to suggestions in the UW internal audit, Harborview management pledged to work with University Student Fiscal Services to seek restitution from Beitelspacher, 50, of Puyallup, and to “work with the Seattle Police Department to ensure that the case is filed with the King County Prosecutor’s Office” by November 2011. The case was reported to Seattle Police on July 22, 2011, but the prosecutor’s office reports there is no active case involving Beitelspecher. Seattle Police Department spokesman Sean Whitcomb said the case is assigned to the department’s fraud and forgery unit and their investigation is continuing.