How's Greensboro doing on transparency and access? A great idea.

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GREENSBORO, NC -- I was speaking to Jeff Martin today and he had a great idea. Every Friday, the City of Greensboro Manager Denise Turner-Roth publishes Items for Your Information (IFYI), in which she provides followups to and information about current City issues. It's a great resource. A regular section of the IFYI is Call Center Feedback, that reports on citizen questions, compliments and complaints as handled by the call center.

Jeff thought it would be of great interest, and I agree, to have a weekly summary of the requests for public records and their disposition. If there was a report every week of the requests received, closed and remaining open, everybody—citizens, representatives and staff—could then see on an ongoing basis how transparent and responsive our government is.

I've requested such a weekly summary before, and the City's public information request tracking (PIRT) system is able to spit them out with ease. Here's a sample of what the PIRT system can generate and that could be included in the City Manager's weekly IFYI: