Google has recently launched a new tool designed to help web users find public data buried in hard-to-find government web sites.
The new service, called Google Public Data, is an effort to make information from all levels of government accessible to citizens.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Qt2n34VEr4
I personally would like to see all Adirondack Park Agency decisions including permits, non-jurisdictional letters and any determination made by the agency in it’s entire history available online and searchable by topic, year, town, county, etc.
The Adirondack Park Agency has been criticized for having little regard for administrative law, making different determinations based on arbitrary findings and in many cases making entirely inconsistent rulings. This is a major reason why the APA encounters so much resistance from local communities. These criticisms could be easily proven untrue if all of the APA’s decisions were online. In this day and age it is unfathomable that the APA cannot organize its permit and non-jurisdictional rulings online in a searchable and open manner.
Google along with Wikipedia and Amazon have all been trying to make it easier to find government information on the web. In 2002, the E-Government Act mandated governmental agencies to make information more accessible electronically but many have complained that federal and state agencies do not organize their sites so they can be easily indexed by search engines.
Sadly, the Adirondack Park Agency lives in the digital wilderness. Their determinations are not online or searchable at all through their website. Google can’t find them because they’re simply not there.
The citizens of New York clearly deserve better.