Things That Irritate Me

By Steve Poftak
July 7th, 2009

– Lack of Legislative transparency — Our Legislature seems to work extra hard to make things hard to understand. In some cases, it is turning around 300 page bills in less than 24 hours, meaning no one can read it with any level of care. In other cases, it’s the lack of available data about pending legislation, as detailed by State House News in a article yesterday (sub. req’d). I’d note that the Connecticut Legislature has a much more sophisticated site that allows you to track bills and sign up for email updates when anything happens related to your interests.

- No 311 in Boston — Boston has an iPhone app for constituent complaints but you still have to “bumble around looking for a number to call“.

- Releasing Stuff Right Before a Holiday — Once again (see here and here), the Patrick Administration released a report right into the teeth of a holiday weekend. This time it was a report on the Film Tax Credit that found it was generating about 16 cents for every dollar of credit granted.

- Lack of Executive Transparency/Lack of Board Governance — The Mass Turnpike Authority, in one of its last acts, passed a budget at its last board meeting. The Globe’s transportation reporter asked for a copy of that budget. He’s still waiting. According to his report, board members reviewed an eight page document that lacked many key details before approving the budget. Shame on the Turnpike for not releasing the budget publicly (still not on their website, as far as I can tell) and shame on those board members who approved a budget without knowing what was really going on.