A county half the size of Lowndes has all its Commission meeting documents online. Why doesn’t Lowndes? Is there something the Lowndes County Commission doesn’t want us to know? If not, why are they hiding the people’s business from the people?

Contract change orders, library board bylaws, applications to volunteer for boards, board responsibilities, CPA agreement letters, invoices with itemized expenses, zoning amendment applications, deeds, plats, cell phone tower applications with maps, and that solar farm application: the Effingham County Commission has all this and more in its meeting documents online along with its agendas and minutes. The format is kind of clunky: one big PDF for all the meeting documents. But it’s also easy for any competent County Clerk to assemble and post. That way local citizens can get all this information without having to guess what they need to find out, file an open records request, wait at least three days (or years), see what excuse the county came up with for not answering or try to deduce what was left out, etc.

With meeting documents online, you can just go to the web and look. In Effingham County, with half the population of Lowndes County: Continue reading →