Policy on Open Government submitted to Council! 

Salt Lake City’s Open Government Steering Committee finalized its recommendations and submitted a proposed policy to the Salt Lake City Council on September 23, 2009. The proposed policy aims to support and further develop an organizational culture of openness and collaboration in Salt Lake City. This culture will benefit both City employees and the many constituencies the City seeks to serve by improving communication, awareness, and trust among all parties. These values will assist the City in making more fully informed and better decisions which serve our community and workplace more effectively. To see the official transmittal, click here.

Salt Lake City's

Greater Transparency for Collaborative Government Initiative

The City learned a good deal about the importance of public participation in the debate over the location of the proposed Public Safety Complex.  Public input was received through a variety of means and, as a result of and in conjunction with the feedback, a new preferred location was identified.   The City will use the lessons learned from the Public Safety Complex discussion as it further develops more effective means for obtaining public input.

On April 13, 2009, Mayor Becker directed the City Department Heads to assess their department’s open government practices on three points:  (1) are the services that the department provides to the public accurately and completely described on slcgov.com? (2) are there categories of documents not currently available on slcgov.com that could be put online to help the public better understand the operations of the department? and (3) are there additional ways in which the department could obtain public input that would assist the department in serving the public more effectively?  These assessments have been recently received by the Mayor and the changes identified will be made over the coming months.

On May 9, 2009, BYU Communications Associate Professor Joel Campbell submitted his analysis of the City’s website.  Styled as a report card, this analysis identifies the strengths and weaknesses of slcgov.com and will be a valuable tool in helping the City make its website an even more useful resource for our constituents.

These and other activities are described in greater detail in the body of the report. We are still in the early phases of our open government initiative, but we believe that significant progress continues to be made.

Ralph Becker                             Carlton Christensen
Mayor                                           Council Chair

SALT LAKE CITY – Salt Lake City government officials took the next step toward making Salt Lake City more open and accessible with the release of a draft of the Open Government Policy for public comment. The proposed policy is the result of months of work by City officials to identify methods for making Utah’s capital city one of the most open governments in the state and region.

The draft policy is available online at www.transparencyslcgov.com where the public is encouraged to review and comment on it. In the lead up to the announcement today, Mayor Becker and the Salt Lake City Council have envisioned Salt Lake City’s open government to consistently follow certain basic principles. These principles include:

• Providing the public and City employees easy access to information that educates and informs.
• Listening to all people affected by the City’s actions. No person or group affected by the City’s actions has a greater right to be heard than anyone else.
• Seeing the public as a source of creative ideas and effective solutions.
• Following stated processes, being truthful, and welcoming accountability.
• Disclosing public officials’ conflicts of interest to the public.

The goals of Salt Lake City’s draft Open Government Policy include:

• Providing complete and understandable information to the public.
• Planning for and incorporating public input at the beginning of each project.
• Letting the public know “why” decisions are made.
• Going above and beyond the requirements when providing information to the public.
• Making the information on www.slcgov.com easily searchable, accessible, and sortable.
• Ensuring Salt Lake City’s public processes are understandable and fair to all parties involved.
• Practicing the principles of an open government in City employee’s daily interactions within City government and between employees and departments.

Since the transparency initiative was announced in January, City officials have come to understand how critically important employee engagement is to the success of open government in Salt Lake City. To that end, City officials will encourage employee input as well as public input on the proposed policy.

In acknowledging today’s announcement, Mayor Becker commented, “More openness can have a transformational impact on how government serves those who live, work and invest in Salt Lake City. Clear procedures and accessible, easy-to-understand records and information will promote the accountability of our public servants as they make decisions and conduct the public’s business and will invite the participation of residents to collaborate in the strengthening and governance of our Capital City.”

The City is also releasing its final proposed policy implementation plan. The plan was originally opened for public comment on January 6, 2009, at the Mayor and City Council’s joint announcement of the Transparency for a Collaborative Government initiative. The revised plan has incorporated public comments received and additional research on the part of the steering committee. A copy of the implementation plan is available online.

For more information about Salt Lake City’s Open Government Initiative visit www.transparencyslcgov.com.