Recently I’ve been working on some research that has led me to needing campaign finance reports for the mayor and city council of Baytown, Pasadena, Deer Park, and La Porte. Since having only worked with Houston’s campaign finance report database, I was surprised to find hurdles with these other cities. Hurdles as in having to submit an open records requests then paying for campaign finance reports despite submitting these requests with press credentials.
First of all, none of these cities have comprehensive, easy-to-use campaign finance report databases like Houston’s. Aside from having a comprehensive database for campaign finance reports, Houston also has a contracts database, and a database for city boards.
One might say Houston is a much bigger city than Baytown, Pasadena, La Porte, and Deer Park, so naturally it would have better government transparency out of necessity.
My question is: What’s stopping smaller cities from having better transparency? They’re smaller, so they have a lot less to digitize into a database.
Let’s start with Baytown
I submitted an open records request for the last two years of campaign finance reports of the mayor and city council to the city clerk and was met with a $21 charge.
I replied asking for those paper copies to be sent digitally. It’s 2018, and if the files were too big they could send it with a .zip file. I was met with this reply.
So, I had to get a money order. One of my friends who lives near Baytown was able to drop off the money order and pick up the campaign finance reports.
Remember, this could have easily been found in a campaign finance report database such as Houston’s if transparency was a priority.
Pasadena
Pasadena was interesting because I submitted the open records request on July 3, and they did not fulfill the request until July 19.
This note was at the bottom of the open records request. As you can see, they went well over the 10 business-day period.
When Pasadena did get back with me, I was met with a $57.90 charge for the last two years of campaign finance reports for the mayor and city council.
Of course, I had questions. It was quite terrifying to learn that the last two years (2016- 2018) of campaign finance reports for the mayor and city council were hard copies.
Without the copies of the originals, my total for campaign finance reports went down to $18.
Remember, this could have easily been found in a campaign finance report database such as Houston’s if transparency was a priority.
Deer Park & La Porte
Deer Park also had me submit and open records request, and asked for $4.50 for the last two years of campaign finance reports on the mayor and city council.
Note that this fee is in accordance to the City’s Public Information Policy, meaning, the policy could be changed. Much like the others, these are transparency policies that could be changed by pressure from the public.
La Porte required an open records request as well, but they didn’t charge me and they sent the campaign finance reports as PDF files to my email.
What’s stopping smaller cities from having better transparency? They’re smaller, so they have a lot less to digitize into a database.
Transparency is a democratic necessity regardless of city size. If a city as big as Houston can have accessible, tax-paid databases for campaign finance reports, contracts, and city boards, smaller cities should be able to be transparent just as well.
