Amy Diggs this: Fort Collins transparency
Colorado residents have yet another reason to move north (but please don’t because I’m really selfish about NoCO) to Fort Collins. Besides being named the second best place to live in America according to CNN/Money Magazine, now Fort Collins residents will enjoy full transparency and accountability from their city government. According to an article in the Coloradoan, “Fort Collins officials have committed to coming up with a system through which payments made by the city may be searched online with a user-friendly format.” City Manager Darin Atteberry supports the idea but asked that he and his staff have until June 2009 to get everything in place.
Taxpayers need to thank City Councilman Diggs Brown for bringing transparency to Fort Collins. Diggs’ rationale seems a bit radical! He stated, ”it’s the taxpayers’ money, and they should be able to readily see how we’re spending it.”
Mayor Doug Hutchinson said of the pending transparency website “Fort Collins is ‘light years ahead of most of the rest of the world’ when it comes to making public records readily accessible.” I don’t know about the rest of world — a whole slew of states and Texas school districts have embraced transparency – but certainly Fort Collins will be light years ahead of the state of Colorado and every other municipality in the centennial state. Fort Collins is the first Colorado city to believe residents and taxpayers deserve to know how their money is spent.
I wrote earlier that this is a ”crazy idea” based on a warped philosophy that stewards of taxpayer dollars should show taxpayers how their money is spent without taxpayers having to ask and pay for what is already public information.
The unanimous vote in favor or transparency and accountability, proves my point from an earlier post. Good government is not a partisan issue. I forwarded the Coloradoan article to the good mayor of Greeley Ed Clark and all city council members and suggested that Greeley follow Fort Collins’ lead. I will keep you posted on their responses. Feel free to contact them yourself and remember: No taxation without information!