Dixon Award for Berry misguided

The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government has announced the latest winners of their Dixon Award for heroes of open government and transparency.

The FOG would have us believe Mayor Richard Berry is a hero of open government.

According to the FOG,

"Mayor Berry has been unusually proactive about making public information available on the City's website, ABQView ..."

"Unusually proactive" is not the stuff of heroism.
Heroes leave their blood on the ground somewhere.

Where has Berry shed his blood or even political capital in the fight for transparency in government?

Berry is no hero; he is at best, a hard worker for open government.

The real measure of transparency in government is not the volume of data published on a government website. The real measure of transparency is the ease with which citizens can find the inconvenient truth; the truth that pols and public servants don't want citizens to see, and that enjoys no exception under open meetings and public records law.

At best, Berry has made it easier to access information, but only information to which there was already access, albeit less convenient.

In stark contrast, the other side of Mayor Richard Berry, the one that enables, allows, or maybe orders mid-level bureaucrats to deny access to bloggers, the political pamphleteers of the digital age, wikilink; the very kind of press the framers of the Bill of Rights sought to protect with their First Amendment.

According to the First Amendment, here highlighted in significant part;

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

And stated in other words;

Mayor Richard Berry shall make no decree, no rule, no regulation, no policy, no procedure, nor "rule of decorum", abridging the freedom of the press.

Berry hasn't the authority, nor does his current PIO Dayna Gardner, nor did his former PIO Chris Ramirez, to limit the access of the press to only those members of the press who are affiliated with those who "own printing presses" or "broadcast licenses, link."

And yet he does.

And is rewarded in spite of it.




photos Mark Bralley