The Sunshine Review has a process and method for systematically looking at the quality of government websites. It has focused some attention on the quality of local government sites to see how they compare and has paid special attention to local governments that show their efforts toward transparency by putting commonly requested municipal data online.

Today's FOIA Friday looks at local government websites through the Sunshine Review lens, and observes opportunities for improvement in meeting the organization's 10 point checklist for access. The checklist calls for published data and information about budgets, meetings, elected and administrative officials, permits, zoning, financial audits, contracts, lobbying, public records access and local taxes. I've given a capsule review of several area cities below. You can see a list of the 19 Michigan cities that have been ranked to date. The project's ambition extends to a review of all city websites in the country — not a small task.

Ann Arbor: C-

The City of Ann Arbor rates a C- in the Sunshine Review rankings.

Good things about the site include the availability of budget information, readily available information on how to contact city council members, online lookup of property tax information, ready access to zoning and permit information, the publication of audited financial reports, information about accessing public records, publication of bidding and procurement details, and good access to city council meeting minutes and agendas.

The city's website lost points for lacking a comprehensive citywide directory of administrative officials, for having minimal information available about the many people who sit on the many city boards and commissions, for not having a single location for the meeting minutes of those many boards and commissions, and for not publishing all of the meeting minutes for all of the public meetings it holds.

As I noted last week, I've been working on getting access to some sets of meeting minutes, first through the extremely slow FOIA process and subsequently by repeated informal queries. I have every reason to believe that the city is committed to prompt and timely publication of meeting minutes, at least as soon as someone notices that someone cares.

I haven't yet even started to tackle the process of systematically identifying the identity and qualifications of appointees to public boards, though I did find the link to the page listing every city board member - which runs to 17 pages of PDF listings, or over 400 names. Many people are listed multiple times, but even so, who are all of these people? What interests do they bring to the table, what qualifies them for service in these decision making bodies, and how do you reach them if you have questions?

The widespread use of citizen committees is a mixed blessing for transparency. Citizens that volunteer to sit on boards do not always bring with them the knowledge of process and procedure that makes access to their planning and decision making transparent. With 68 separate organizations on this list, not all of which are meeting regularly, it's hard simply to keep track.

Other Washtenaw County governments

I've spent the most time with City of Ann Arbor information, but here are some ratings for some of the other municipalities I've had time to sift through.

Ypsilanti scored a C-. The review identified a lack of contact information for elected officials, the lack of a comprehensive city directory of administrative officials, confusing information presentation of bids and RFPs for city projects, and minimal information about membership in taxpayer-funded lobbying associations.

Chelsea scored a C-. The review observed that no contact information was made available for planning and zoning board members, financial audit reports were available only through a complex process of searching for them on the state's website, contract and bid information was not published, public records requests were not accepted or fulfilled via e-mail, and no information was provided about membership in taxpayer-funded lobbying associations.

Saline scored a B-. Meeting agendas and minutes are online for only the past three months, but minutes of previous meetings are unavailable. Contracts and bid information is not available, and lobbying affiliations are not listed.

The worst of the municipal websites reviewed in the area was that of Barton Hills Village, which rated an F. The website publishes a bare minimum of information, including meeting minutes but not meeting agendas, and budget, tax, zoning and bidding information are noticably absent. The village, with a population of 335 in the 2000 census, has perhaps not seen its online presence to the world as a priority in a community where everyone is within a short walking distance of the village hall.

FOIA status

Every week I write up some information about FOIA requests in progress. This has been a slow week for formal requests, but I've been systematically contacting city and township clerks and supervisors to make sure that I have a current point of contact for questions that can be answered by a FOIA request; I'm noting telephone numbers, fax numbers, e-mail addresses and names of FOIA coordinators and contacts throughout the county. By my first approximation there should be about 75 separate contact points when I'm done.

I'm continuing to sift through the public data catalog from the City of Ann Arbor, and in particular I'm looking at the police calls for service log that it released. The city, along with neighboring Ypsilanti, participates in the regional system called CLEMIS:

"Oakland County's Courts and Law Enforcement Management Information System, commonly called CLEMIS, is state-of-the-art computer technology used by criminal justice and public safety agencies. By serving as a technical link among multiple agencies, CLEMIS promotes communication and sharing of criminal justice information."

The task of getting timely crime information in a form which readily alerts neighbors to minor crimes of interest to their neighborhood is not a particularly simple one, but I'm observing that a better understanding of the CLEMIS system is likely to help this effort.

Edward Vielmetti writes the FOIA Friday series for AnnArbor.com. Contact him at edwardvielmetti@annarbor.com.