Reader comments
Lehi's unreasonable charges

Am I as a taxpayer supposed to pay for all these requests instead? especially if someone is on a fishing trip?

As a taxpayer, I would gladly pay the cost of someone (anyone!) keeping an eye on the nonsense that comes from Lehi's city government. Blind faith that any city government is above corrupt, or even petty, practices is a recipe for disaster. This is an attempt by the city leaders in Lehi to avoid accountability. These charges clearly violate the spirit of Utah's Sunshine Law, and I hope someone sues the city of Lehi to get the fees overturned.

If the people who are charged with retrieving data are so incompetent that they take more than fifteen minutes to do the job, perhaps they should get some training. Searaching a computerized database takes only seconds. Printing out that information costs only a few pennies per sheet.

On the other hand, if the data has been hidden, then Lehi has a problem that their city government will never fix no matter what charges they levy.

Government exists to serve the electorate; it does not exist to serve the elected.

I agree completely with Mike (9:48 am).

In fact, most of the data generated by government these days STARTS life in electronic form. How many typewriters have you seen in ANY office lately. City council and other meetings are typically recorded on digital media and if they are transcribed, the transcription is done in word processor. Pay stubs, city plans, etc, etc, are in Word, Excell, PowerPoint or other electronic formats from the inception.

Not only should records be easily searchable and printable at very low cost, but the vast majority of them should be on publicly accessible web pages anyway. The Utah legislature has set a fine example with their webpage. There are a few things they still need to add. But by and large, it is a fine starting point for any city or other government entity that really wants the public to have access.

Every government entity should post an e-copy of their checkbook to the internet. EVERY penny spent should be easily viewable by those paying the bills.

This is only the beginning, or the continuation of a police state, couched in terms of privacy for the government agency and its confidential informants. The DCFS has been trying for years to curb the flow of information on how the system works for the best interests of the child.

It's a no-brainer that public information is owned by the public and should be freely shared with the public. If Lehi and other government entities don't willingly post information on the web, they are blatantly showing their desire to hide behind a veil of secrecy.

What is the Lehi City Council afraid of? Why don't they post true agenda's and minutes for all public meetings and closed sessions. Take a look at their cheesy web site to see that they only have listed 8 council meeting minutes and half of those are really reposted agendas.

The Lehi City Council is doing everything in it's power to prevent citizen input into the governmental process. Lehi is killing democracy and implementing totalitarianism.