Why an Open Government Blog for Local Governments?
Foster Pepper assists local governments with open government compliance. As part of our work, we train public officers and employees from Local Governments on Washington’s open government laws.
In a recent editorial in the Seattle Times, Ramsey Ramerman, the chair of Foster Pepper's Public Disclosure team and one of the lawyers most active in this practice, explained his views on these laws:
I believe "trust is the coin of the realm." Only with the public's trust can those who serve in government use government to help the public. Open government mints trust. With this coin, government serves.
Washington's local governments mint trust with the state's open government laws — the Public Records Act, the Open Public Meetings Act, the Public Disclosure Act (campaign laws) and state and local ethics laws. These laws are ranked among the best in the nation. And Washington's Public Records Act is one of the country's most "user-friendly" laws.
Foster Pepper attorneys, including Ramsey Ramerman and Steve DiJulio, have trained thousands of elected officials and other public officers and employees on the Public Records Act. We have also advised nearly every type of local government in this state on open government issues. From this experience, we have witnessed Washington’s open government laws at work. In this blog, Foster Pepper will use that experience to track developments in open government law, policy and application.
The voices and perspectives of the public records officer, general counsel and other public employees are rarely heard in the press’s coverage of open government issues. In Foster Pepper's Local Open Government Blog, we will analyze these issues, taking into account this missing voice, as well as other perspectives.
