March 25th, 2005 | by Derek Willis | published in Public Records, State Data
Mark Ballard of the Baton Rouge Advocate obtained a Louisiana database that “pinpoints places on state roads that [the state] suspects are so defective and so poorly maintained that they cause crashes or, at least, contribute to wrecks.” The Abnormal Locations Report identifies more than 12,000 spots where more than 760 people died and another [...]
March 22nd, 2005 | by Derek Willis | published in Public Records
Colleen Krantz of the Des Moines Register and Janet Rorholm of the Cedar Rapids Gazette report that a newspaper audit of public records in Iowa shows that “law enforcement agencies in Iowa provided greater access to their public documents during a recent investigation by Iowa newspapers than the agencies did five years ago, yet police [...]
February 12th, 2005 | by Derek Willis | published in Public Records
Mark Chellgren of the Associated Press reported on an investigation led by the Kentucky Press Association and the Associated Press into “whether public offices are allowing citizens to view government documents.” The investigation “showed most are obeying the state’s Open Records Act, but compliance is not uniform.” The results were mixed, varying from a smile [...]
February 4th, 2005 | by Derek Willis | published in FOIA, Public Records
Dan Christensen of the Daily Business Review in South Florida writes about an interest group’s FOIA request for documents from the Justice Department relating to legal proceedings involving immigrant detainees since Sept. 11: compiling the records, the agency said, would cost “approximately $372,799. Please note that this does not include the search times estimated from [...]
February 2nd, 2005 | by Derek Willis | published in Public Records
Mike Knobler of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution used public records to track football recruiting expenses by Georgia and Georgia Tech. “Tech budgeted $556,703 for 2004-05 football recruiting, which works out to more than $25,000 for each of the 18-20 players expected to sign with the Yellow Jackets on Wednesday. But that per-player figure is misleading: In [...]