Tri-Cities government
transparency scorecard Click to reveal criteria and notes

All meetings of elected officials are held in regular chambers with ample seats for the public to observe.

Richland has historically held an informal pre-meeting workshop before regular council meetings, which is sometimes an hour long. Few people attend these meetings, as they feel “private” and like the public is not welcome. There are minimal minutes taken at these meetings.

Agendas and packets should be in a searchable archive, with links between documents. All documents should be available online as HTML. Any PDFs should be searchable text. Any interested party should be able to subscribe to receive packets via email as soon as they are publicly posted.

Richland agendas

Meetings should be recorded and streamed, with a searchable archive available online in their entirety. As many public meetings as possible should be available in this way, using the same system across the board.

Kennewick started streaming 9/2019, so there is limited archival footage.

★ Pasco gets the best-in-class score for having more than just City Council meetings recorded.

Richland does not have either the council’s workshops or their regular pre-meeting workshop online.

West Richland meetings are aired live on Public Access channel 191 and available online as audio recordings.

Meeting minutes for both regular meetings and workshops should include discussion details rather than just summarizing the decision points.

Richland minutes are "action minutes" only.

Municipal code should be online, easily searchable, and provide the ability to easily view and track change history, as well as link directly to a diff.

★ Kennewick uses a tool that provides full detail of code changes, including the ability to link to changes.

Pasco's tool is just a step below Kennewick's in user-friendliness, but meets all the criteria.

Richland and West Richland use the same tool, which is adequate, but lacks the ability to easily track, compare, and link to versions.

Tools and content should be mobile friendly.

All packets, agendas, minutes, meeting notices, and announcements of public video stream starting should be shared on social media.

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