FOI Pacestter

It is disgraceful. The only newspaper in town has a vendetta against our Mayor and Council. What a bunch of naysayers at that newspaper that are giving such a negative view of the City. If I did not know any better, I would think that the Paper has been taken over by a bunch of BLOGGERS!

Over the last few days what have we seen? First the "Fast Eddie" story about the sound system at Council with the unattractive picture of our Mayor on the front page. Then the unflattering comment about the Capitol Theatre from the Mayor. Of course we had Henderson effectively mocking our weakling Mayor for not starting a lawsuit over the DRIC demonstrating positively that he is not protecting our kids and is acting in an unconscionable manner. Now this.

The Windsor Star advertising contract comes up at Council on Monday.

In my opinion, considering all of the money that Council pays over to the Star in a year including that extra hundred thousand dollars for that glossy magazine, the Star has not learned yet to be a team player and boost this City. The Mayor and Council ought to think long and hard before they approve it

What a ridiculous headline to have in the Star:

• “City earns 'D' for non-disclosure”

Why didn’t the Star look at the story properly considering the strategic approach that our City takes towards Freedom of Information requests.

Heck, just the other day, I asked for copies of all Resolutions passed by the City with respect to the border file, both public and in camera. One would have thought that Administration could have provided this information instantaneously since the issue is so important to the City.

Nope.

It cost me $208 plus GST to have City employees spend eight hours to find this material. Fortunately, I did not ask for photocopies of the Resolutions. That would have cost me $2.00 for the first page and 0.30 for each additional page.

They should have run this headline instead to put a positive spin on what our City is doing:

• “City is fourth best FOI obstructionist in Canada”

How about this instead based on another section of the Report:

• “City is #1 in FOI fee setting/revenues”

Now headlines like those would draw out of town investors and seniors here like bees to honey. Isn't that the kind of City in which you would relocate? Things would look up for the City.

In case you want to read the report, I have posted the full report here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/10041357/FOIpaper

Here are some of the comments in the report that should make us proud. Put that “W” on your chest and make sure that everybody knows that you are from Windsor:

• “Want to know how much CBC pays its top employees? Hurry up and wait. Want to obtain a spreadsheet file of purchases by the City of Windsor, Ontario? Get ready to write a BIG cheque...
  
  The fourth annual Canadian Newspaper Association freedom of information audit shows vast inconsistencies in how governments and public agencies fulfill their obligation to be open with the people who elect them. Information available in little time and at no cost from some institutions was unavailable, or only available at high cost or with long delays, from others.
  
  Some examples:
  • The City of Windsor said it would cost as much as $103,000 to provide an electronic list of payments for goods and services, while Saskatoon, St. John’s and Regina released the same information quickly and for free.”
  


• “An inventory of the municipality’s passenger vehicle fleet, including make and model, how many are in the fleet, and the department using the vehicles. As well, a copy of the municipality’s policy on idling vehicles.
  
  Of the 22 municipalities sent requests, 12 released the records in full, while two released them informally out-side of the act. Windsor and Ottawa issued modest fee estimates,”
  
  
• “Nine municipalities issued fee estimates, the largest of which was $103,420 from Wind-sor, Ontario. The city said it would have to search through more than 100,000 paper re-cords to locate the reasons it made payments. It allowed that if the reason for payment was left out, then it would only cost $1,570. The city said it would take its staff more than three days to export the data from its computer system, for which it would charge $780. The rest of the $1,570 was to be for time spent severing exempt information, and 2,000 photocopies at 20 cents each. It wasn`t clear whether paper copies would be provided, or if the charge for photocopies was per electronic “page.” The latter would be a highly unusual practice, while the former would mean the city was ignoring the request for an electronic file.”
  
  
• “A brief glance over the above table reveals that certain institutions are far more likely to ask for fees than others. The City of Windsor sought fees on three of the four requests it handled.”

Just think about this for a moment.

The scary part about all of this from a Windsor taxpayer perspective is not the FOI Report itself but the mess that our records system is in compared with other municipalities. 100,000 paper records to locate the reasons why the City made payments, three days to export data… can you really believe this? Can we have any confidence at all that the Finance Department has a handle on Windsor’s finances?

Perhaps it is time for the Provincial Ministry responsible for municipalities to come in and do an audit of this City’s systems.