City Councilman Carl DeMaio is guest hosting the Credentialed blog today. His third post appears below.
As passionate as I am about fixing the city’s financial situation, I am equally passionate about the cause of “open government.” I actually see the two issues as highly linked. San Diegans deserve a city government that is ethical, transparent, and welcoming of public input and participation in every process of government.
Several of my meetings today at city hall touched on open government issues.
For example by 10am I was meeting with officials from Cox Cable on ways to improve programming on City-TV 24. I see City-TV as vastly underutilized — with huge potential for helping better inform San Diegans on what is actually going on inside city government. The channel could also be better positioned to help educate and inform citizens on topics like water conservation, emergency preparedness, and accessing city services. Before I release proposals I like to meet with as many subject matter experts as possible to get their input. Cox Cable was very helpful with their ideas. Stay tuned!
Later I met with City Auditor Eduardo Luna. Part of open government is making sure an independent audit is conducted of each department’s operations and finances. Taxpayers have a right to know what is going on with their money in city government. Mr. Luna and I discussed the schedule of upcoming planned audits. My colleague Kevin Faulconer and I were successful in securing funds for adding three auditors and a fraud investigator to his department to carry-out new “performance audits” to look for waste and inefficiencies.
One of my closest partners in the fight for open government is my colleague Donna Frye. I stopped by her office — as I do quite often — to cover some issues. One of the issues was the flawed proposal to build a new City Hall.
Ever a champion of public participation, Donna is supporting my call for putting any proposal to build a new City Hall to a public vote. No one agrees all the time, but I have enjoyed working with Donna Frye on bipartisan open government reforms over the years.
