Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Transparency
Transparency is a political buzz word these days that is too often overused by our elected officials. More often than not the word is tossed about in debates and interviews to give the impression that our legislators are being more forthcoming with their constituents regarding what’s happening on Beacon Hill. This past year in particular, after our third Speaker Of The House in a row was forced to resign amidst allegations of impropriety, the word was used incessantly in the same sentence with another buzz word, “ethics” and what followed was an ethics reform bill that allowed legislators to say “see, we’re being honest”.
Although the ethics reform bill is a step in the right direction, what is most “transparent” is that it does not go far enough to insure that we, the people, can see what our tax dollars are paying for. The open meeting portion of the bill simply pushed more responsibility on local municipalities and shifted the focus away from the larger concern of what goes on in the meeting rooms of Beacon Hill. Our House Of Representatives and Senate should be susceptible to the same scrutiny as our local governments. When $375,000 in legal fees was recently spent in connection with the corruption probe of Sal Demasi and no one could verify just exactly what “we” were paying for, that’s not transparency.
Social media has given a voice to all the people through internet technology. What could be more democratic than that? Making public records “public”, making freedom of information “free”, and making the open meeting law “open” by requiring that all agencies of government keep computerized records, and by making them accessible to everyone, on line, would offer true transparency.
The dictionary defines the word “transparent” as meaning “to let light shine through”. It would be nice to let the light of social media shine through all those closed doors on Beacon Hill.
POSTED BY STAN on March 17, 2010
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