Mayor Dellums dines alone?
I always look forward to reading look forward to reading “Watchdog,” the government transparency column from Thomas Peele, who is hands-down my favorite journalist in the Bay Area. Public records and open government may not be the sexiest of topics to read about, but they are the bedrock of quality local news. Without the longtime efforts of people like Peele, the coverage myself and other local bloggers provide would be much more difficult, if not impossible.
I was especially pleased to see in Sunday’s column that Peele has decided to take an exciting step towards embracing new technology to enhance citizen access to government information, and has placed the Statement of Economic Interests of some of our elected officials online. These statements are already, of course, readily available to anyone who goes to ask for them, but true transparent government isn’t just about making information available, it’s about making it easily accessible, and until cities and states make the leap to providing this information in more findable formats, it’s wonderful to see local media stepping up to fill the void.
I think, in this case, the effort could probably have been handled better – the statements aren’t what I would call particularly findable on the Trib’s website, and it’s mostly Statewide officials, plus the Mayor and most of the Oakland City Council (all of which are grouped in one long document, rather than browseable individually). Add to that the fact that the documents are being held in a weird storage system where viewing isn’t what I would call particularly user-friendly, and I have to register for an account if I want to download them and read them easily on the computer. It may not seem like a terribly big deal, but on the web, you lose users with every single step you make them take. So as far as practical accessibility from a user perspective goes, I’d probably give this effort a C.
But these are the sort of things you learn with experience, and if BANG decides to embrace (as I hope they will) Peele’s commitment to making this information more public, I expect we will see improvements in the interface over time. So, hooray for Thomas Peele and I’m going to cross my fingers and hope the paper follows his lead and starts offering more of this sort of information and figures out a more user-friendly way of presenting it.
And for all you Dellums watchers out there, here’s a tidbit from the column you might fight interesting:
It always makes me curious when major politicians don’t report anything on their annual statement.
No reportable gifts, free travel, investments, loans or business interests?
Oakland Mayor Ronald V. Dellums reported that he had nothing to disclose on his statement for 2008.
The idea that the mayor of a major American city could go a calendar year without attending one function where someone else paid for a meal is intriguing. So is the idea that no one gave the mayor a gift for a full year.
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9 Responses to “Mayor Dellums dines alone?”
April 28th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Why would anyone try to buy Dellums’ influence with gifts? He has none.
April 28th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
I would be interested to look at the disclosures of the Chamber of Commerce and companies who have hosted receptions of any kind in Oakland. If Dellums was in attendance, he probably received a letter stating the value of the gift. Just one letter would call into question his entire report. If he didn’t go to any events, he is not doing his job.
April 28th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
It’s tempting to give him a gift just to see if it gets reported next year.
But no, I’d rather donate money to an Oakland charity or to a campaign begging him to quit before the end of his term.
April 28th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Thanks very much for calling attention to public records, open government and especially to Tom Peele. His work needs all the support it can get.
April 28th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
An article regarding Dellums’ expenses was posted by KTVU-TV on June 15th. It includes links to Dellums’ personal expense report, staff expense report as well as staff salary figures. Very interesting – it appears that his stays at the Ritz Carlton and Four Seasons in Washington DC (where he owns a home, no less) are about equal to my property tax payment over the four years of his “reign”. There are also two United flights listed, on the same date, at $2051.01 a pop. If you added up all of the plane trips I’ve taken in my entire life I don’t think they’d add up to $4102.02. http://www.ktvu.com/news/16615115/detail.html
I still don’t understand why we can’t recall him, or at least attempt to – maybe coax out his “sickness” in the process. All we need is 40000 signatures; I imagine 10 – 20 people standing outside of the city’s Safeways could accomplish this in a matter of weeks.
April 28th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Is Dellums really demanding a pay increase as Chip Johnson asserts in today’s article? That’s news to me – and utterly mind-boggling.
April 29th, 2009 at 4:18 am
The Charter provides “The Mayor’s salary shall be reviewed by the City Council in odd-numbered years and may be adjusted by the Council as provided for herein.”
April 29th, 2009 at 5:40 am
So, the Council *could* lower the Mayor’s salary, for non-performance and absence?
April 29th, 2009 at 8:33 am
If we pay him, maybe he’ll go away.
When I read the news about Ron Dellums, I can’t help thinking of the film BREWSTER’S MILLIONS, that Ron must have some valid but secret reason behind his [in]actions.