NEWTON COUNTY— The need for improvements to the county’s efforts to provide transparency and accessible information to its residents was a topic of conversation at the Jan. 20 Newton County Board of Commissioners meeting.

In an agenda item brought forth by District 5 Commissioner LeAnne Long, the commissioners considered ways to put more information on their website and other platforms, allowing citizens to find certain public information without having to file an open records request.

“...We need to make sure they have information,” Long said. “They’re not having to do an open records request to get something as simple as what’s being zoned next door to their house. That is not right.”

Proposed improvements were displayed on the presentation screen during the meeting. Three categories were shown: Why this matters, what is being requested and key policy improvements.

First, Long detailed that improving public information access is important because citizens have a vested interest in knowing and understanding a topic before the commissioners take a stance.

Topics such as rezonings, Long said, can directly impact a citizen’s property values and quality of life.

“The most important decisions we make shape our neighborhoods, infrastructure, traffic, schools and home values,” Long said. “We are elected to represent the people.”

Two specific points that are being requested are providing more details about meetings, both the board of commissioners’ and the planning and zoning hearings.

Long pointed out that minutes sometimes lack a roll call or a vote distribution breakdown. She advocates that citizens should be able to see what members of a voting body were present and who specifically voted in what way. 

Additionally, documents like agenda packets, rezoning information, annexations and other topics with direct community impact should be readily available online rather than only obtainable via an open records request.

Long’s advocacy was supported by a public commenter, who later shared that she emails the county clerk every week to obtain agenda packets via open records requests ahead of board of commissioner meetings.

“I’m sure Ms. Nolley would appreciate this because she gets an email from me every two weeks on the dot wanting the commissioners’ packets,” said Marie Milien. “Why should I have to submit an open records request for a commissioners’ packet? Like it’s not a secret, it’s not top-secret, just put it online, I’ll download it, have it on my phone, I can read it when I want to.”

Long then outlined additional policy improvements. One of her major points of advocacy was presenting a way to allow more public input in the county’s work to update its Unified Development Ordinance (UDO).

“…I want to see the UDO on the website, and if we can set up a suggestion portal that would be great, where they can make comments back and we can log those comments,” Long said. “...The biggest ideas and the best ideas come from the people sitting in our audience, the people watching this on YouTube, and our citizens. They’re not our ideas. And I think sometimes they may get something that we’re missing.”

Other goals included finding a way to livestream the planning and zoning meetings, publish agendas and reports a week in advance, share more info pertaining to zoning cases and more.

“This won’t be immediate tomorrow,” Long said. “But we are working with the county and our IT department to get all the information out where you can find it on the website, including any annexations, planning and zoning information that’s out there, published agendas, minutes that have on there what happened to that vote.”

Long stated that, although she led the conversation during the meeting, these improvements are a goal of the entire board, not just herself.

“This is not a Commissioner Long thing; this is the board of commissioners,” Long said. “We’ve all had these discussions. We’ve all talked about them—county manager, the chair, everybody—we’ve all had these discussions. I just am the most hyper and loudest, so sometimes I say ‘Get it on there [the agenda].’”

The topic did not require a vote by the commissioners. As it is a matter of internal operations and not a list of concrete rules to follow, it could be subject to tweaking dependent upon what the county determines feasible or improved upon if additional ideas are proposed.

Only Commissioner J.C. Henderson offered brief words of support, but no commissioner said anything against the topic or voiced opposition. Long remained the most vocal on the need for the improvements.

“When the citizens are informed, the communities thrive,” Long said.