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David Stanley Ford

Report ranks Oklahoma low on records accessibility
Most counties don’t put data online

VALLERY BROWN    Comments Comment on this article21
Published: August 13, 2009

Nearly 80 percent of Oklahoma’s counties do not make online records accessible to the public.

As a result, Oklahoma is ranked toward the bottom in a report that looks at transparency in local government.

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The Sunshine Review is a project of the Chicago-based Sam Adams Alliance, a conservative nonprofit organization. The organization hosts and funds projects relating to new media, government transparency, health care and taxes.

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The Sunshine Review grades each county by determining whether its Web site has information about budgets, meetings, elected and administrative officials, zoning and permits, audits, contracts, lobbying, public records and taxes.

The review shows 57 Oklahoma counties don’t have a central Web site.

Oklahoma County received the highest grade: a B-minus. The next highest grades went to Tulsa and Beaver counties: C-minus.

In total, 59 Oklahoma counties failed the 10-point grading scale.

Kristin McMurray, managing editor of the Sunshine Review, said its purpose is to help people become active in their government.

"Activism is turning online,” McMurray said. "We want people to see this checklist, take it to their city hall or county commissioners and tell them they could be doing more.”

McMurray said the Sunshine Review site launched in 2008 and is built by volunteers. Like Wikipedia, users can enter and edit information on the site. McMurray’s writers also peruse it for errors and omissions.

She said mistakes can be corrected in a matter of minutes, and the site is continually updated.

Brian Downs, executive director of Oklahomans for Responsible Government, said in the digital age, putting the information in a convenient place should be the standard.

"This is the taxpayers’ government,” he said. "For them to have confidence in it they should be able to easily access this information.”

Downs said smaller counties receiving high grades prove that it’s not an issue of manpower or cost.

But Mark Thomas, executive vice president of the Oklahoma Press Association, disagrees.

"I appreciate the measurement but not the implication that county governments that don’t have Web sites are being dishonest,” he said. "It doesn’t mean that anyone is hiding anything.”

Thomas said at issue is how smaller counties operate with smaller budgets. An expensive Web site might not be a top priority, especially if residents don’t want it.

"Since most government-run Web sites are just puff pieces of public relations for that arm of government, it doesn’t matter to me if they have a Web site,” he said.

Thomas noted newspapers are supposed to give people the information they need to know. And most of these records are easily accessed by walking into a government office or looking to state-run sites.

Making the grade
"I want an A-plus,” Oklahoma County Clerk Carolyn Caudill said.

Oklahoma County didn’t receive it because lobbying information and audit data aren’t on the Web site. It received partial credit for posting some contracts online.

Caudill said audits will be on the Web site soon. She also thinks linking certain county sites to others would be useful and more user-friendly.

"Mega counties have big bucks,” Logan County Clerk Troy Cole said. "We’re forced to do some of the same things in the more rural counties, and it can be crippling.”

Logan County received a failing grade despite information available on meetings, land records and county officials.

Oklahoma’s average score was 2, and only three states scored lower — Kentucky, Mississippi and New Mexico. California and Arizona fared the best in the review.

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David Stanley Ford



Related Topics: Politics, Local Politics


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"paul, yukon" is the new anonymous
Travis, OKC - Aug 25, 2009 at 8:15 am
Jeez Paul, do you realize how pitiful you sound?

No friends, your family hates you, most folks in this forum know you to be incapable of rational debate thus not worthy of engaging.

Is your poisonous bile starting to back up in your throat? Getting a little lonely out there?

paul, yukon - Aug 14, 2009 at 8:31 am
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Too many damn fake pauls on this page.....for i am....


The Really Real
paul, yukon - Aug 13, 2009 at 6:11 pm
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BTW, fake paul, my post directed to you from 3:10 IS insulting you. (didn't want you to have to wonder)....
paul, yukon - Aug 13, 2009 at 3:12 pm
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Hey fake paul... would you care to explain the way you correlate "doing business with small town businesses" and the fact that most of okieland is in the dark ages with record keeping under the freedom of information act?

I'm just DYING to hear how your twisted logic sees these 2 issues as the same thing....
paul, yukon - Aug 13, 2009 at 3:10 pm
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At the risk of repeating myself, Desiderius Uptown and his ilk ARE the very dumb Okies that he so loves to ridicule.

He is too obtuse to understand the irony of that.

Real
paul, yukon - Aug 13, 2009 at 12:43 pm
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this report sounds like the teachers union, the only states lower in teacher pay are miss and new mexico/
Gary, Oklahoma City - Aug 13, 2009 at 12:41 pm
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this is a stupid ranking. 80% of okla's counties may not have web sites yet, but I'm guessing that over 80% of oklahoma's citizens live in the counties with decent web sites. Oklahoma county's web site is outstanding for getting land and tax records. I could care less if the county sites spend more time and money making their sites more politically active.
- Aug 13, 2009 at 11:03 am
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Desiderius, Uptown, Why don't you shut up and become part of the solution, instead of showing how piss ignorant you can be? We have a chance to effect an outcome if we choose to. People always bitch and moan about the government, and claim they have no say in what happens. By offering suggestions instead of childish insults, you just might one day get an Oklahoma you can be proud of , without having your wife or husband become Governor first..On Brad Henrys' web site, there is a suggestion box. Tell it to the man, and just maybe he will listen...
willis, oklahoma city - Aug 13, 2009 at 10:23 am
We rank low in everything except redneck morons - that we have an over-abundance!
Desiderius, Uptown - Aug 13, 2009 at 10:12 am
Good point, Mike. After a decade of nationwide and global businesses, let's get small. Let's get back to small business owners living in towns in which they do business.

Screw the big-box banks and retailers. Buy local, our employees spend money in your communities.

I love the old-fashioned feel of our many small Oklahoma communities.

Real
paul, yukon - Aug 13, 2009 at 10:03 am
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I believe the solution to the dilemma that rural counties face is easily corrected. If local government offices would utilize their local high schools, to assist with the development and maintenance of web sites. It would be a win win situation, as it would facilitate the needs of the community, while providing an outstanding opportunity to teach students in a real-world situation. That idea would cost very little to institute, and will give these students and local officials, valuable skills in the information technology field. We have an opportunity to turn this into a great model for the nation, and actually lead the nation in openness and accessibility through a joint effort between government and educators.....
willis, oklahoma city - Aug 13, 2009 at 10:02 am
folks, it's their county and what happens in it I would bet is well known long before it could ever get typed on a computer. They actually talk to each other in these other counties.
Mike, Oklahoma City - Aug 13, 2009 at 9:51 am
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My business must access information on people and property nationwide on a daily basis.

~ The Oklahoma County Assessor website is among the best in the nation, bar none.

~ Oklahoma County Clerk Carolyn Caudill has done an outstanding job with her comprehensive website.

~ The Oklahoma State Courts System makes information available to us that most other states do not.

~ The Oklahoma Tax Commission site could use some tweaking however, filing income and sales tax returns and paying online is fast and easy.

~ The Oklahoma Prison Systems does a good job making inmate information available to the public.

There are several additional very good sites for public information but I will stop by tossing a bone to the haters of Oklahoma. Yes many of the rural counties have little to no information readily available.

Real
paul, yukon - Aug 13, 2009 at 7:45 am
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(fake) Paul and his ilk ARE the very dumb Okies that he so loves to ridicule.

He is too obtuse to understand the irony of that.

Real
paul, yukon - Aug 13, 2009 at 7:28 am
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Public records are free and online at several websites of other states, but to obtain a public record for someone in Oklahoma, ya gotta ante up 20 bucks and send in a request for the record via snail mail.....paying all postage, of course, and stating your reason for wanting the record and showing proof of identification.

I can see where posting an original document online would be expensive, but a simple index of things like birth, marriage and death records, would be highly beneficial to genealogy researchers, such as me.
Stephen, Edmond - Aug 13, 2009 at 6:01 am
Do you ever get the feeling that Oklahoma is stuck in a time warp? Maybe revisiting Ground Hog Day? A continuous loop of bottom feeders? "Stuck at the Bottom with You" could be a new song title for James to pick up at the record store. Oklahoma and Mississippi together again.
Percy F., Ardmore - Aug 13, 2009 at 5:53 am
Oklahoma and another category to be judged on= FAIL.
paul, yukon - Aug 13, 2009 at 4:52 am
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Websites are not expensive and not hard to maintain. It's just being lazy, but I'm sure people in rural areas aren't too concerned about their local government's operations. Newspapers are becoming obsolete, the internet is the only way to go now days!
Jess, Warr Acres - Aug 13, 2009 at 2:19 am
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Records are easy to get in Oklahoma- I just bought a couple at the second-hand store today.
james, moore - Aug 13, 2009 at 12:13 am

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