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Also this issue: Risque Business Warpath: Cool Hand Bill Strike Two The Bell Curve |
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April 10-16, 2003
hall monitor
A few years ago Ed Goppelt had to stop working full-time for health reasons, and started the website www.hallwatch.org as a hobby. The site, which contains just about everything you ever wanted to know about city government and the yahoos we elect to run it, quickly became a favorite resource for journalists, politicians and City Hall insiders. Goppelt, a self-described political junkie and crusader for the average citizen, says he developed his site as a labor of love. So when he petitioned the city’s Records Department a few months ago for easier access to public records on properties, land titles and real estate transactions, he was surprised and angered to get the cold shoulder. What happened next is a study in city politics and entrenched bureaucracy.
Stonewalled by the Records Department, Goppelt decided on a two-pronged counterattack: First he called a lawyer and filed a lawsuit against the Records Department demanding easier access to public records. At present, the records are available to anyone who wants to schlep down to City Hall between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. and use the Records Department's computers. Goppelt argues that the technology is readily available to make these records a mouse click away for anyone with a computer, and if provided a CD of the records, he'd put up the information himself on hallwatch.org within 24 hours. The suit is pending. Meantime, he wrote letters to the members of City Council asking them to get involved. They got involved all right, culminating in Council hearings last week and again Tuesday afternoon that saw Records Department Commissioner Joan Decker on the hot seat and trying to explain to an angry City Council why public records aren't more readily available to the public, and why inquiries into making the records more accessible were rebuffed by the department.
Councilman David Cohen was first to take Decker to task Tuesday, forcefully demanding to know why the commissioner had defied his orders last week to meet with Goppelt to hash the matter out.
"Do we have a Records Department that works for the city and its citizens or don't we?" Cohen spat. "If you want to have a budget for the Records Department next year, you should make the information available to Mr. Goppelt immediately and take advantage of his offer to put the information up on his website with the city's thanks."
Councilman Frank Rizzo then took up the veiled threat a bit more forcefully.
"If you want to fight about this, we can do that," said Rizzo. "If you need us to make Œadjustments' to your budget in order to facilitate your compliance, we can. If you're just determined not to cooperate, just say so."
Rizzo went on to say he uses hallwatch.org all the time, and fairly screamed at Decker to just give Goppelt a CD of the data and be done with it, for crying out loud.
That did it. Decker and her assistants met with Goppelt right then and there, retiring to the anteroom just behind Council President Anna Verna's chair.
"They made a few weak excuses, but the bottom line is that we're meeting again on April 14, and I hope we can work it out then," Goppelt said afterward. "I just want to give people more of a chance to gain knowledge about city government. Knowledge is power, and that power belongs in the hands of the taxpayers."
According to mayoral spokesperson Christine Ottow, the information Goppelt seeks is available for a price of $400, which Goppelt says is outrageous for public information.
"The Public Records Act provides for reimbursement to the city for the cost of retrieving records -- even public records," Ottow said. "We have provided Mr. Goppelt with information on various issues for his website and will continue to do so. We hope our meetings with him will allow us to be able to come to an equitable solution, but we'll have to wait and see."
Goppelt is optimistic about the outcome of the next round.
"At least they sat down with me -- that's some progress. It took months to even get that. I'm wearing them down," he laughs.
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