East Hampton Town officials have announced a new online system for fees, applications, and licensing. Once the service is fully operational, construction and permits business handled on paper up until now will be digital. This will include matters handled by Planning, Building, Ordinance, and Marine Patrol divisions. Already some departments are up and running on the OpenGov platform.
Though there will inevitably be bumps, the system should help organize the review process and, perhaps, speed up the rate at which permits are issued by facilitating inter-departmental communication. It should also reduce paper use, a good thing. There is even a mobile app that the company can provide. It is strange, though, that boat mooring information for an ordinary citizen, for example, is now held in the computing cloud.
OpenGov, a Silicon Valley tech company, was bought by Cox Enterprises earlier this year in a deal worth $1.8 billion. Yes, you read that right. Somewhat mind-boggling, much of East Hampton Town government is now handled by an Atlanta-based business that boasts $23 billion in annual revenue. Approximately 1,900 governments and agencies use the platform, according to the company.
One question is what OpenGov and Cox do with the data and how secure it is kept. However, the system is described as a way for small governments, school districts, and the like to better protect against cyberattacks and ransomware. On balance, this is good.
By coincidence, Open Government Week, not related to the software, begins May 19. It is intended to shed light on the municipal responsibility to make information available to anyone who asks for it. In most states, there is a presumption of openness as far as official records are concerned. Governments have the right to ask for formal Freedom of Information Law, or FOIL, form, but the growing trend is for materials to be made readily accessible for anyone -- and without stalling or charging unfair copying fees. A request delayed is sometimes a request denied in matters of urgent public interest. And the law is not just for news organizations; anyone can seek municipal records as they like. At least, that is the theory. Exemptions are few and limited to matters under active investigation, some purchasing proposals, and those that might represent an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. Generally, commercial use of records concerning individuals is not allowed. Denials can be appealed. Thanks to the already excellent town clerk's office, we know how much OpenGov costs. After add-ons for fire safety and reporting features, East Hampton's subscription works out to be a little more than $95,000 for the year.
One of the intriguing possibilities that the online system presents is that it could improve public access to information. For example, after an embezzlement scandal, the City of Durango, Colo., adopted OpenGov as a way to improve transparency. Data is available at a granular level, including the ability to drill down to see who is writing what checks to whom, as the Durango mayor put it. To what extent East Hampton's new system speeds up public requests to obtain government information in town will have to be seen.
Why does this matter? Local governments can be twitchy about completing freedom of information requests. In part this is because of the time it takes for staff to locate and copy paper records, but habitual defensiveness plays a part, too. Online systems like the one adopted in East Hampton should make access to information a lot easier so long as no unnecessary barriers are put in place.
Consider us generally enthusiastic about the change.