The Enid News and Eagle, Enid, OK

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Discussion

September 5, 2009

County Web sites designed to keep people informed

By Joe Malan, Staff Writer

Jonathan Cross says no matter where he’s at, whether work or home, his job never ends.

“I’m people’s neighbor,” Cross said. “They can come to my office, they can come to my home 24 hours a day,” he said.

Cross, as a Blaine County commissioner, says he always is looking for ways to make government more visible to its constituents. If somebody in his district has a problem, Cross said, he’s available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

According to a recent study, called the Sunshine Review, many counties in Oklahoma fail to provide transparency to their constituents in the form of a Web site. Blaine County is only one of two counties in Garfield County’s surrounding area to have a Web site, joined only by Kay County.

Garfield County soon will be joining the ranks of the few counties in Okla-homa that do have a Web site, which the Sunshine Review recognizes as a big part of government transparency. Steve Hobson, a Garfield County commissioner, announced just last month the county would be getting its very own Web site, a tool that could become a portal between the community and local government.

The county site could include things such as meeting agendas, times, dates and activities going on around the county, as well as contact numbers for the county’s local officials.

Scott Savage, Garfield County commissioner for District 3, which essentially is the western part of the county, said a phone number is the best way the people of his district can keep in touch with him.

“I think there are a lot of farmers that have (my) number because I want them to have my number,” Savage ex-plained. “I feel I am accessible to the public. They elect me and I work for them.”

So, for Cross and Savage, there’s more that goes into keeping in touch with the local community than merely keeping an active and up-to-date Web site.

Cross says a Web site is nice, of course, especially when technology today is constantly accelerating into something more advanced.

“That’s the growing thing is people getting online,” he said. “That’s probably something that should be looked at more than it is.”

But, he says, he prefers a more “traditional” tool when keeping others up to speed on what’s going on in local government.

“To me, the newspaper is not something I could live without,” he said.

“The Internet is OK, but there’s still something better about being able to hold it in your hands.”

Savage is in favor of any way to keep the people informed of things going on in local government and the county, and one thing he says people should stay more informed about is public safety, especially in the wake of flooding that occurred a few weeks ago.

But whatever the reason, he said, any way that local government can stay transparent to the public is imperative.

“I always have thought county government is the closest to the people,” he said. “With some other forms of government, it’s hard to catch (officials).”

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