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Transparency is needed in township government

By Scott Tibbs, July 13, 2018

The primary reason I am running for a seat on the Perry Township Board is that township government operates almost entirely in the dark. The newspaper rarely covers township government unless there is a major scandal, and the public almost never attends their meetings. When you have a unit of government that is spending over one million dollars a year and has been under one-party control for decades, that is something that needs to change.

That starts with the township's online presence. The last meeting minutes was February 16, 2017, though there have been many meetings since then. Unlike city and county government, there are no meeting agendas online for the township board. So if you are a citizen in Perry Township and you want to follow what your township government is doing, you cannot do that through the township board's website.

In the age of social media, there is simply no excuse for this. Meeting agendas can easily be posted to Facebook, Twitter or other sites. There are many sites that will convert a PDF to an image file for free, to make viewing it even easier, especially on a mobile phone or tablet. A Facebook or Twitter feed can easily be updated to let the public know when and where a meeting will be, along with a scan of the agenda.

It is never good when a unit of government operates out of the public eye. If I am elected to the township board, all of this information will be online. If the township office itself will not do it, then I will do it myself. If you believe in transparency, vote for Scott Tibbs for Perry Township Board!