….::: VOX POPULI :::….

Sunlight Creeps In…

Posted by Mark Headd under Open Government

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about a now infamous land deal in Delaware between the state’s Department of Transportation and a close personal friend of the former governor, Ruth Ann Minner.

Following a series of scathing newspaper articles and editorials about the deal, the current Administration began constructing new regulations to govern the long-term lease of public lands by the Department of Transportation.

My post was written primarily in reaction to comments made by the current Secretary of Transportation (who, by the way, was the Secretary under the former governor when the sweetheart deal was granted) which suggested that she did not want to see an outside body review potential lease deals.

At the time, I suggested that this was a defining moment for the current Governor, who campaigned on opening up state government to more scrutiny and enhancing transparency:

I would suggest that this is a litmus test moment for Governor Jack Markell on transparency. It’s time for him to put his actions where his rhetoric has been.

Governor Markell should immediately direct DelDOT to develop a system for leasing public land for private development that is open and accountable. The current system used by DEDO should be emulated with an emphasis on public review of proposed leases with an opportunity for Delaware citizens to access details of proposed leases and raise questions.

In reviewing the proposed regulation submitted by the Department of Transportation in the wake of this scandal, I’m pleased to see that a some public review mechanisms have been included, despite the earlier comments of the Transportation Secretary. It’s also somewhat reassuring to see that the responsibility for determining if a below-market value lease of publicly owned land is approved rests with an oversight body - the state’s Council on Development Finance.

Having said that, there is room for improvement. For one, I can’t figure out what decade this regulation was written for.

The State of Delaware has spent millions on an infrastructure for publishing and managing state agency web sites. The State (including the Office of the Governor itself) has devoted countless hours to using social media platforms, including a massive overhaul of the State’s web site to highlight the social network accounts of state agencies.

And yet, nowhere in the proposed regulations does the word “Internet” appear. Or the word “website.” The regulations would require only that the Department of Transportation advertise a proposed lease of public land at a below-market rate in a “newspaper of general circulation in the county in which the parcel is located.” How 1975 is that?

It’s worth noting that the current Governor campaigned on his record as a technology executive, and his past participation in efforts to modernize the state’s IT workforce. It seems somewhat ironic then that this proposed regulation (written in concert with the Governor’s own legal counsel) could — from a technology perspective — easily have been written for a time when the Governor was in high school.

I guess I’m just curious why Twitter is appropriate for telling Delaware citizens to conserve water, but not to inform people of a potential lease opportunity of public lands.

Sunlight is indeed creeping into Delaware Government. Very, very slowly…