As reported in the Roanoke Times by Lerone Graham, the Montgomery County League of Women Voters (LWV) received a grant to support open government in our locality. The League has 900 chapters and the Montgomery group was awarded one of ten grants, which implies a need if not also being merit based.
This supports efforts of the Depot Dazed blog and related "Library of Christiansburg" documents and videos provided to the public via a website. The LWV grant and efforts of Carol Lindstrom dovetailed nicely. Lindstrom had some initial questions and wasn't thrilled with Christiansburg's official response, so began filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and then sharing the information -- expanding the scope well beyond her initial queries, showing that developing a comprehensive website wasn't rocket science and need not take years or tens of thousands of dollars to do.
She also showed how anyone could easily provide recordings of public meetings, although Christiansburg chooses not to do so via its website or through awarded cable franchises. (Council chambers don't even provide a basic sound system so the audience can hear members speak.) Lindstrom was also instrumental in working to have the question of whether town elections should be moved placed on the ballot, to encourage greater involvement while reducing related expenses, when council chose to "wait and see" rather than taking any action themselves. That question will now be put before voters this November.
Lindstrom's blog and citizen's website all came about at the same time the newspaper was reporting the town routinely excluded citizens from public meetings. This happened during last year's budget process...and the cycle seems to be repeating itself, although additional FOIA "training" was administered.
Every other local government, the county, the school board, and the state have held numerous work sessions and public hearings to receive input on their 2009-2010 budget, or have already completed the process except for final votes.
In Christiansburg, preparing a budget in the public eye appears to be going down to the wire again. The Finance Committee has not announced any budget preparation meetings, nor has the budget been included on a single council agenda so far this year, or in the final quarter of 2008.
It will be harder to justify following bad old habits, given the incident last year -- and Christiansburg voters should be keenly aware of council's acceptance of this practice when they head to the polls this November.
The Montgomery County LWV will also be sponsoring a March 30 forum focused on Downtowns Re-Visioned. Additional details will be published here, and it's great to see this organization taking the lead on how local zoning and budget practices affect our communities, as well as safeguarding open government.