Do you know what the City of Greensboro needs?

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GREENSBORO, NC — Thinking a little about yesterday's question for incumbent city council members of what they can say he or she has specifically done to increase local government transparency and public access, I asked myself what would I do. Here's what I came up with, and I offer it as a head start for sitting council representatives who may want to have a good answer to my question during next year's elections.

The City of Greensboro needs an ombudsman.

The ombudsman will be a citizens' advocate employed by the taxpayers, working in city hall with great independence from but intricate familiarity with and access to city government; someone whose job it is to navigate the bureaucracy on behalf of citizens whose needs and interests may have some friction with other city employees or elected officials or who otherwise find themselves dissatisfied with the city's response to them through normal channels.

The ombudsman would have two primary areas of focus:

Records Requests

The ombudsman would:

1. Be a single point of contact for all records requests — stay on top of them, make sure they get to the right people, are explained precisely with regular reminders to city employees of what the law demands of those in possession of requested records.
2. Monitor records requests for timely and complete fulfillment.
3. Instruct and guide city staff when responses to records requests are deficient.
4. Advocate for citizens when records are delayed or denied. He or she would know the law, maybe even be a lawyer, so that he or she can make cogent appeals for the release of records denied by the legal departments. 
5. Escalate denied, delayed or inadequately completed requests to City Council, where he or she would advocate for citizens' requests on behalf of the citizens at public meetings as agenda items on which council can make formal and authoritative decisions.

Unsatisfied Citizens

The ombudsman would:

1. Be a resource for dissatisfied citizens who are unable to get adequate resolution to their questions or problems with city government through normal channels.
2. Be an independent evaluator of the City's responses to unsatisfied customers; to encourage and advocate for a more satisfactory response from the City on behalf of citizens.
3. If, in consultation with the citizen, they determine there is some specific action the city could take that staff cannot or will not authorize, bring the issue before City Council, where he or she would advocate for the citizen on behalf of the citizen at public meetings as an agenda item.

The ombudsman would be the primary person responsible for records requests and a backstop for other types of complaints and frustration. Let the city's customer service and departmental employees continue to handle problems and complaints to the best of their abilities, but for the most difficult and seemingly unsolvable customer problems, the ombudsman would be there to take the side of the people and work on their behalf.

That's my idea.