Tagged: government transparency

Public authorities are set up to serve the public good in some way.

But 13 local public authorities across New York have been censured by an oversight agency for repeatedly failing to comply with state law.

The Authorities Budget Office (ABO) says the 13 authorities have failed to turn over public records, like financial statements, for months.

Four months ago, Governor Andrew Cuomo launched a new website called CitizenConnects. He hailed the site as an "electronic town hall" that would give New Yorkers, "unprecedented access to the workings of the executive branch."

So has CitizenConnects delivered? Not really.

The tagline for the site reads, "Care enough to connect to your state government."

Unfortunately, no one at the governor's press office cared enough to return several phone calls requesting details about why some information on the site is either missing or out-of-date.

At yesterday's meeting of the Empire State Development Corporation board - the agency that helps fund economic development projects in New York - ESD President Ken Adams proposed the formation of a new committee to talk about policy.

But here's where it gets meta: the board doesn't yet know if they want their committee-to-talk-about-stuff to have to talk about that stuff in public.

That indecision led to a surprisingly candid exchange about whether the board wanted to skirt the state's Open Meetings Law, shown in the following video (courtesy of ESD):

New York’s new regional economic development councils are kicking off their first round of meetings this week - by kicking out the public.

Each one of the 10 councils is charged with crafting a plan to compete for a $1 billion pool of state funding, but it’s still unclear what that process will look like.

Yesterday, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office announced that the first round of council meetings will begin on Wednesday, but from the looks of the press release, the public isn’t invited.

That doesn’t sit well with some good government groups.