One effective way to keep an eye on what’s happening in our government is through open records and open meetings, and Georgia has pretty good laws for both of those.

Attending meetings generally requires only a small amount of time for any agency. Some government agencies meet only once per month and sometimes for less than one hour. Some may meet twice a month (work session and regular session) or some as frequently as four times (two work sessions and two regular sessions). Attending meetings is a good way to show the elected and appointed officials that you are interested in what they are doing as your representative. Making open records requests is a good way to get additional information about issues in which you are interested.

In Georgia, the Open Records Act is O.C.G.A. §50-18 and the Open Meeting Act is O.C.G.A. §50-14 . The official copies of these can be found online at http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/gacode/, however there are handy links on the State Attorney General’s site at http://law.ga.gov/law which provide easily readable PDF files.

The introduction of O.C.G.A. §50-18-70 says:

The General Assembly finds and declares that the strong public policy of this state is in favor of open government; that open government is essential to a free, open, and democratic society; and that public access to public records should be encouraged to foster confidence in government and so that the public can evaluate the expenditure of public funds and the efficient and proper functioning of its institutions. The General Assembly further finds and declares that there is a strong presumption that public records should be made available for public inspection without delay.

There is a rather long list of limitations including items required by federal law to remain confidential, medical or veterinary records, personnel records, sealed bids, real estate apprasials before a transaction is completed or rejected, information about children in recreational programs, governmental building security, and so on (see section O.C.G.A. §50-18-72). For day to day items, meeting minutes, agendas, supporting reference materials, and the day to day operations of a governmental agency it should be easy to request and obtain these items. In fact, in section O.C.G.A. §50-18-71 the code says

(f) As provided in this subsection, an agency’s use of electronic record-keeping systems must not erode the public’s right of access to records under this article. Agencies shall produce electronic copies of or, if the requester prefers, printouts of electronic records or data from data base fields that the agency maintains using the computer programs that the agency has in its possession. An agency shall not refuse to produce such electronic records, data, or data fields on the grounds that exporting data or redaction of exempted information will require inputting range, search, filter, report parameters, or similar commands or instructions into an agency’s computer system so long as such commands or instructions can be executed using existing computer programs that the agency uses in the ordinary course of business to access, support, or otherwise manage the records or data. A requester may request that electronic records, data, or data fields be produced in the format in which such data or electronic records are kept by the agency, or in a standard export format such as a flat file electronic American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) format, if the agency’s existing computer programs support such an export format. In such instance, the data or electronic records shall be downloaded in such format onto suitable electronic media by the agency.

Get involved locally by attending a meeting or making a open records request about a topic that interests you.

    –gretchen

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