The Case for Local Government Transparency: Evansville Style

The Case for Local Government Transparency: Evansville Style

By: Brent Grafton, Candidate for Evansville City Council from the 5th Ward

Local governments all over the country are realizing the benefits of being more transparent and seeing how transparency is directly related to effective governance. By being able to comprehensively engage their constituency, they are able to open up lines of communication which, as mentioned before, results in a more educated citizenry and better policy decisions. Transparency and governance intuitively just seem to go hand in hand. What is difficult to understand is with such an intuitive relationship, why is transparency so difficult to put into practice.

As an appointed member of the Evansville Board of Public Safety in Russell Lloyd Jr.’s administration, my fellow board members and I were subject to Indiana Code 5-14-1.5-2. That particular part of the Indiana’s law defines for us just what constitutes a meeting that must be announced and open to the public. There were also restrictions on having ad hoc meetings to discuss City of Evansville business. To put it bluntly, we were not allowed to make policy or spending decisions or even have discussions about such matters outside of an announced public forum. All of the appointed boards whether compensated or not were subject to these so called “sunshine” laws.

I recently became aware of a situation where the Mayor of Evansville appointed an Advisory Committee made up of citizens and a single elected official to make a recommendation on just who will manage the new Evansville Arena. It is also my understanding that the Advisory Committee’s recommendation will be made to the Evansville Redevelopment Commission whose members are appointed by the Mayor. It is furthermore my understanding that certain members of the Evansville City Council are not in agreement with the recommendation of the Advisory Committee or the process that it went through to reach it.

Managing the new Evansville Arena is an important financial decision to the people of Evansville. This decision will greatly affect the cash flow of the Arena and the ability of the City of Evansville to pay for the operations and make the bond payments according to the commitments that have been made by our elected City Council. To make the decision on what firm will be hired without public deliberation, while it technically may be legal, should have been conducted in the public forum.

Business leaders are not always aware of the details of public disclosure when asked to serve on committees. It is up to elected government officials who they choose to serve to advise them of such rules. It is also of paramount responsibility that elected officials embrace transparency as a way of conducting the business of government in all areas.

Transparency promotes accountability and provides an opportunity for residents to be better informed about what is going on in their communities.

Transparency creates an avenue for the public to start demanding more information, and this is generally considered a good thing.

Transparency promotes trust of local government among the people of Evansville. If the people of Evansville’s 5th Ward are generous enough to choose me as their next City Councilman, I pledge to be as transparent as the law allows and to expose any and every situation not only where sunshine laws apply but to where sunshine laws should apply.