To restore public trust, Seattle city government needs a renewed commitment to transparency

A great city like Seattle should never have anything to hide from its people. That's why one of the best things city government can do to earn the public's trust is to act with transparency and make public information as freely accessible as possible. Doing so is also a way to support and encourage more independent journalism by providing all news outlets with equal access to public information.

Seattle has a history of being a leader on government transparency efforts, and since launching the Open Data Program in 2010 the city has hosted a huge amount of public information on its data.seattle.gov website. Many key datasets are updated regularly or even live and are open to anyone in the public to peruse. The idea was that the city had nothing to hide from the people, and it would be easier for everyone if they just made the information available rather than requiring people to file constant public disclosure requests (PDR"). Open data is one powerful part of running a transparent government. The city also just in general needs to be more forthcoming and proactively open about program and project developments as well as political decision making.

The city has lost its way over the past decade or so as more and more public information has receded back behind the obscure and slow PDR process. This is especially true for the Seattle Police Department, as Erica C. Barnett at Publicola has been documenting, but it's also true for other city departments. For example, it took a PDR by Ryan Packer to learn that the Seattle Parks Department and the Seattle Department of Transportation had invested staff time and public money into designs for a safer Lake Washington Boulevard before Mayor Bruce Harrell's office told them to scrap those safety updates. Before the PDR was fulfilled, simple media questions asking why the safety upgrades were scrapped went either unanswered or only vaguely answered. There is absolutely no reason SDOT and the Parks Department should ever obfuscate some roadway design plans or refuse to provide the public with an explanation for project changes. A similar process played out over efforts to close the nude beach at Denny-Blaine Park. These are not state secrets, these are our public parks.

The reason it was so hard to get this information is that Mayor Bruce Harrell's office was at the center of it. They have made a habit of obscuring the flow of information, which is not just bad for the public but was also bad for Mayor Harrell. It didn't work. Instead, every time it took a PDR to reveal major details about a public project, it made them look untrustworthy. This is how he got the nickname Backroom Bruce," which dogged him during the campaign. Hiding public information is almost always more damning than whatever the information says.

As it appears Katie Wilson will be Seattle's next mayor, there are going to be a lot of people like me talking about what the new administration should prioritize. I will of course have thoughts on how a new administration can make our streets safer and more accessible for biking because that's what Seattle Bike Blog does. But being extremely transparent from day one is one of those priorities that can benefit all the city's work. I urge the incoming administration and the whole city government leadership chain to embrace a fresh approach to public information. Doing so would also set clear expectations for all the non-government workers who interact with City Hall, whether they are paid business lobbyists, individuals or community organizations.

The good news is that the city probably doesn't need to invest heavily to build new transparency tools from scratch because many of the tools are already available through data.seattle.gov, Seattle Channel, Legistar, various department-specific data portals, or from project webpages on city websites. Mostly, we just need everyone to use them more often. Every project over a certain size needs to have a webpage that houses all relevant documents, and city staff should be more broadly empowered to share information without requiring too much executive oversight (some oversight is needed since department heads and the mayor need to be aware of what's going on within the departments they oversee). If it's a hassle or time-consuming to update a city webpage (a complaint I've heard from various city staffers), then the city needs to figure out how to make it easier. Essentially, if a document would be available to a PDR, then it should probably be on the project website. Project updates should always be transparent about what has been changed since the previous update. Reporters should never need to use the Wayback Machine to uncover project cuts. We will still find out the information, and the city will look untrustworthy in the process.

Oh, and please bring back the Seattle City Directory? It should never be difficult to figure out who works for who and who holds what public job. Relying on Publicola for a public directory is absurd.

All city news is not good news, so the public may discover problems through the city's increased transparency efforts. However, this is a feature, not a bug. If there's a problem, then we need to deal with it, and Seattle should do so in an open and honest manor. It's much better to have problems come to light in the open than to discover later that city officials knew about the issues and didn't let the public know.

Finally, transparency can only truly work if city employees are given clear expectations and can trust the mayor to support them. If staffers are afraid of retribution from above for sharing public information, then they will of course be less likely to do so. Then again, if city employees are living in fear of retribution from above then that's a sign of a much larger leadership problem.

We live in a time when the Republican leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives will stop meeting entirely to prevent the release of public information that could tie the President and many other powerful people to a pedophile ring. Operating with real transparency is just one of the many ways Seattle can and should conduct itself in stark opposition to the Republicans in DC. Seattle has nothing to hide.