Dan over at Gone Mild has (as usual) a great post yesterday regarding how in spite of a few misteps early in Funkhouser's administration, Kansas City is in a lot better shape than we have been for a while with Funk at the helm.
It's too early to tell, but I like the openness of the mayor's office right now. Funksfrontporch has correspondences from all aspects of the office...internal information that has never really been available to Joe-Citizen under previous regimes.
Before you dismiss the importance of this, check out this column by Ted Gup at the Washington Post and his thoughts on the backroom and private politics taking place in Washington DC.
According to Gulp, The Information Security Oversight Office of the US Government (wow, didn't know that even existed) claims that in 1995, 3.6 million documents were stamped as "classified", "secret" or "top secret". In 2005, that number is now up to over 14 million.
Gulp then laments that "secret" information is usually less accurate than open information because secret information has not been open to debate - -and it's easier for someone to game the system without open debate.
But what Gulp finds more alarming is the general public's increasing tolerance for secrecy.
"Without timely information, citizens are reduced to mere residents, and representative government atrophies into a representational image of democracy as illusory as a hologram."
If anyone thinks that information is free and open, look no further than the KC Star's Buzz Blog -- an insiders view into politics in this town that is only available to the few people who can afford the astronomical cost to pay for it.
So I applaud what Funkhouser is doing with Funksfrontporch, and what other savvy leaders are doing by opening up more information to their constituents. State Rep Jolie Justus has opened up similar dialogue with her blog Freshmeat, and Mark Forsythe did an excellent job of it during his campaign for city council. As a society, we need to be more demanding of information of the inner-workings of our government. Crucifying those who communicate because we don't agree with every decision will make us all losers in the long run.
Why give props to Forsythe? That guy sucks.
Posted by: Mark | June 22, 2007 at 10:37 AM