Tables with lots of numbers are useful, but not if the tables are incomplete and either confusing or misleading as a result. Take, for example, the city of Albany’s “Popular Annual Financial Report.” Officials are proud of this 20-page illustrated effort to explain the money angle of city government. The city staff has a long history of […]
The Albany city government has turned down a request by Tom Cordier for a list of about 27,000 email addresses to which it sends City Bridges, its monthly newsletter with stories on city programs and services. Cordier wanted the list so, as a private citizen, he could pay a company to email an appeal to […]
What are those “Yes” signs around Albany trying to say? Yes to what? To refresh your memory, if you’re a voter in Albany, no later than Sept. 3 the county clerks in Linn and Benton counties will mail you a ballot for a city election. If you want to vote you have to mail it […]
It was all sweetness and light Monday at the unveiling before the Albany City Council of a proposed charter amendment to fix problems with the city’s new debt limit. Council members nodded their agreement with the proposal and will probably act in June to put the measure on the ballot in a special election Sept. […]
Tom Cordier, holding papers, after Monday’s city council work session. By declaring Albany’s debt-limit charter amendment to have passed, the city council could make peace with the more than 5,000 voters who approved it last month. But apparently it won’t. At a work session Monday, the council majority seemed to agree to go ahead and […]
Now it’s the lawyers’ turn in Albany’s latest romp into the wilds of direct democracy. Voters approved two initiatives written by North Albany resident Tom Cordier. One says the city council will need voter approval of any future urban renewal districts. No question about that one. But the other says the city cannot incur “new […]
Albany email dispute: Story continues
Tom Cordier, the citizen activist in Albany, has scored a partial victory for the public’s right to get public records, in this case email addresses. The case also raises a question about the city’s own use of those addresses. Cordier had sought to use a list of 33,800 addresses to which the city government emails its […]
Tags: Albany city, Doug Marteeny, email addresses, Tom Cordier