Findings by the Task Force on Open Government appear to be valid.

The Task Force said the city’s Web site was less than helpful.

Eye on Jacksonville has had considerable difficulty finding information on the site.

Finding people to provide the information being sought is even more difficult.

I tried to contact my old friend Mike Weinstein.

When I went to the Web site, found (with some difficulty) a place to search for employees and entered his name, he couldn’t be found.

A name search from the main search bar turned him up, and identified him as Mayor Lenny Curry’s $175,000 finance director – but wouldn’t provide a phone number or email address.

In fact, phone numbers and email addresses are pretty rare on the city’s Web site. The City Council does provide them for its council members and employees, but any others are either not there or mighty difficult to find.

Previous versions of the Web site have been easier to navigate and find employees and information.

Curry says his administration is dedicated to being transparent, so you would expect information to be available or for citizens to be able to contact someone to get information they need.

Instead, there seems to be an effort to push people into making public records requests, a tendency also found at the Sheriff’s Office. Such requests can take months to answer.

There are probably dozens of highly paid “public information” people on the city payroll. They haven’t provided us with much help.

If the information is public, why do you have to “request” it?

Why not just publish it on the city’s Web site?

[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://eyeonjacksonville.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Lloyd-Brown.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Lloyd was born in Jacksonville. Graduated from the University of North Florida. He spent nearly 50 years of his life in the newspaper business …beginning as a copy boy and retiring as editorial page editor for Florida Times Union. He has also been published in a number of national newspapers and magazines, as well as Internet sites. Married with children. Military Vet. Retired. Man of few words but the words are researched well, deeply considered and thoughtfully written.[/author_info] [/author]