Good Government

A bill that would centralize all of the city’s Freedom of Information Law requests on one website was lauded by several City Council members and good government groups on Monday, but received surprise opposition, in its current form, from the mayor’s office. Two members of the media also testified expressing concern that such a website could compromise their competitive advantages.

The council heard public testimony Monday on a bill that would mandate the creation of a website which would list all Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests filed with the city, display the status of each request, and make the government’s responses public, among other features. New York State’s FOI law states that all government records are the property of the public and should be provided in a timely manner upon request...

Council member Ben Kallos, one of the bill’s sponsors, defended the government’s right to publish all FOIL requests. He pointed out that if such requests aren’t published in a timely manner, it would be impossible for the public and the media to tell if requests are being filled on time or filled at all.

Council Member Ben Kallos and the government operations committee he chairs are set to hold two interesting hearings on Monday. First, at 10 a.m., the committee will look at the issue of extending community board eligibility to 16 and 17-year-olds, considering a resolution recommending passage of a bill in Albany that would allow such an extension.

Then, the highly-anticipated Open FOIL bill will get its first hearing at 1 p.m. The bill, introduced by Kallos, would create an online portal allowing people to see the status of FOIL requests. One of the issues expected to be be brought up is whether the name and organization of the person submitting the request would be published. For the average citizen looking to obtain records, having their name on the portal will likely not be a big deal. But for journalists having their name and type of information they are requesting in an online portal could tip off their competition and jeopardize a story.

The government ops committee will be meeting along with the technology committee, chaired by CM Jimmy Vacca, and council members will be discussing Open FOIL and two other open gov bills.

Under legislation to be introduced by Councilman Ben Kallos (D-Manhattan), the city would be required to post all government notices on its website — from announcements of a community board meeting to an application for a new sidewalk cafe.

“There’s literally hundreds and hundreds of places where the government has to make a public notice — but nobody knows what the government is doing, because the public notice requirements are so arcane,” said Kallos, chairman of the government operations committee.

New Yorkers, meanwhile, can enjoy the fact that the newly proposed NYC POIA will give them a chance to show the feds how it’s done. Democratic Councilmember Ben Kallos introduced New York City’s version in order to achieve the same unimpeachable aim as the federal POIA: bringing government into the 21st century by putting all public government information online.

In several ways, the NYC proposal is stronger and goes beyond its namesake bill. Rather than simply expressing the sense of the legislative body that public information should be available online, NYC’s POIA mandates that:

Whenever the terms "public information," "public inspection" or "inspection by the public" are used in the charter or administrative code...the information provided by a city agency pursuant to any such requirement shall include...publication of all such information on the agency’s website, in an open format, and publication to the open data portal...no later than such time as such information is provided by any other means.

While the federal POIA foresaw putting the decision about what to put online in the hands of anadvisory council, the NYC POIA proposes to let existing restrictions on public information provide the guidelines for online access. In other words, in terms of making the meaning of “public” truly equivalent to “online,” New York’s proposal accomplishes this quite neatly.

They have signed on to a resolution from Manhattan Councilman Ben Kallos, which would recommend greater disclosure on application forms filed by candidates and independent screening panels to be set up by each borough.

"By opening up the legislative process with an open API we can empower civic hackersand entrepreneurs to create applications that make our government accessible and accountable to all New Yorkers," Council Member Ben Kallos said in an emailed statement. Kallos, a long-time open data advocate, said he applauds the rules reform, adding it is a technological leap forward.