I just read your post “Keeping Secrets” and thought you might be interested in this page from WikiFOIA (the wiki dedicated to the Freedom of Information Act): https://wikifoia.pbwiki.com/Transparency-Reforms which talks about the need for easier access to public records. Hope you like it!
Thanks,
Sara Key
www.WikiFOIA.org
http://openrecords.wordpress.com/
I've heard some rumblings that Ms. DePerno intends to make internet access to the property database a pay-to-play proposition with...surprise,surprise...a discount for "heavy users". Those would be the lawyers and abstract companies that helped fund her campaign. That ignores the fact that we've now payed for the database multiple times- through the normal taxes allocated to support the staff of the clerks office, through funds dedicated to installing the computer hardware for the original database, through the individual filing fees for every deed, and through the money dedicated to paying for the hardware that supports the new database. If anything, you would think digitizing the records would save piles of money, instead of it becoming an increasingly larger expense.
