Transparency and accountability in contexts including police reform and economic development were on the agenda at the (virtual) annual summit (#FOIsummit) of the National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC) late last week. The conference continues on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.
Rep. Herod
The most provocative panel was on police reform, focusing on California, Colorado, and New York. Colorado State Rep. Leslie Herod spoke with conviction about the raft of reforms signed into law in Colorado on Juneteenth 2020. Included was the state's landmark elimination of qualified immunity for police. Herod explained that the 2020 protest movement sparked an opportunity in bipartisan alignment. The libertarian Cato Institute, she said, would like to have seen qualified immunity for public officials abolished across the board. Police were a start. Read more about the Colorado law from Jay Schweikert at Cato and from Russell Berman in The Atlantic. The session is available on YouTube.
The conference's first general session focused on economic development and offered up another compelling colloquy. Nothing was settled, but advocates on both sides of the transparency problem pressed their best arguments and pulled no punches.
Greg LeRoy, executive director of D.C.-based NGO Good Jobs First, emphasized the public money at stake in economic development projects and lamented localities' complicity in the empowerment of unaccountable corporate powers over public services. He had data from one representative development project showing public investment that could not possibly generate a justifiable return. Such a transaction is none other than a transfer of public wealth to corporate shareholders, he said. Good Jobs First has model legislation.
Meanwhile Ronnie L. Bryant, principal of consulting firm Ronnie L. Bryant, LLC, pleaded passionately that troubled urban centers throughout America, and the people living in them, don't stand a chance at economic opportunity without offering incentives to private investors. As moderator Dalia Thornton wrangled the pair to common ground, Bryant proved willing to guarantee transparency before and after negotiation on a deal, but not during.
Caught in the crossfire, Albuquerque, N.M., chief administrative officer Sarita Nair has worked previously on both sides of the divide, and now, she said, is the policymaker having to balance priorities. I agreed with her sentiment recognizing that, at least, we've come a long way from the bad ol' days of heck-no, everything's-a-trade-secret FOIA exemption.
