From the Raleigh News and Observer (7/4/09): We weren't too surprised to hear that a recent study rated Apex as one of the state's least transparent municipalities. Transparent, as in open government, access to public records, all that jazz.
The western Wake town this week got a D from the John Locke Foundation’s N.C. Transparency initiative, which monitors Internet availability of public documents.
In its report card on Apex, the group said it wasn’t able to easily access Apex’s budget and several other key financial documents that were more easily found on Web sites of other municipalities.
Town Manager Bruce Radford said the documents would have been made available to the organization had it asked for them.
“We run quite a transparent operation,” Radford assured Triangle Politics. “We’d be happy to give that information to anybody who came today. … To my knowledge, we have never denied a request for any public information.”
Well, at least not since last month.
Town officials, including Radford, sat on public planning documents related to a massive real-estate project that could add 20,000 residents and more than double the town’s tax base — despite e-mail, telephone and in-person requests for the documents under the Freedom of Information Act.
Apex finally released the documents, several days after they were submitted, and a couple of hours after town officials hosted a back-slapping news conference with the developer.
To be sure, Apex isn’t the only Wake town struggling to make the grade. Garner and Zebulon also got Ds.
In contrast, the Wake County school system was ranked the “most transparent” in the state. Wake got a B. No other district got better than a C.
The Locke Foundation hasn’t been a great admirer of the Wake school system over the years, so the accolade is definitely noticeable.
“We’ve got to give Wake its due when it deserves it,” said Terry Stoops, education policy analyst for the Locke Foundation.
The Johnston County school system got one of the lowest grades, a D.
News & Observer Staff Report