The Enid News and Eagle, Enid, OK

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August 12, 2009

Garfield County looking to build Web site

By Joe Malan, Staff Writer

Garfield County doesn’t have its own Web site, but that soon may change.

According to county commissioner Steve Hobson, personnel are working to build Garfield County its own Web site — a place where county residents would be able to view meeting times, agendas and news.

“We’ve just started looking into (it),” Hobson said Wednesday.

A county Web site would put Garfield County in the minority, as it would be one of only 21 Oklahoma counties to have its own Web site. There currently are 57 counties without one, according to the Sunshine Review, a site that assigns transparency grades for each county.

The Sunshine Review, a project of the Sam Adams Alliance, recently graded each county in the United States on level of transparency, or the ability of each county’s residents to access information important to them.

According to an Aug. 11 release by the Sam Adams Alliance, only eight of the 77 counties in Oklahoma received passing marks for transparency. The 57 counties that do not have a Web site were automatically given a failing grade.

Residents of each county were asked to go to the Sunshine Review site and grade their county’s Web sites on accessibility to 10 elements: Budget, meetings, elected officials, administrative officials, permits and zoning, audits, contracts, lobbying, public records and local taxes.

The Oklahoma county that received the best grade was Oklahoma County, with a grade of B minus. The county was shown to have complete information on budgets, meetings, elected officials, administrative officials, permits and zoning, public records and local taxes, while having incomplete information on contracts and no information on audits and lobbying.

Beaver County and Tulsa County each received a grade of C minus.

Hobson said many tools would be available on Garfield County’s Web site for the public to keep up with government happenings.

“Different offices ... may have something they can post on (to the Web site),” he said.

“Whatever would be interesting to people.”

Hobson said Wade Patterson, Garfield County assessor, is leading the effort to create the Web site. Patterson did not answer calls to his office Wednesday.

To see results of the Sunshine Review for Oklahoma counties, go to sunshinereview.org.

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