Informed public is best defense

G
overnment agencies serve the public, and the public in turn has a right to be informed and given a voice on actions that affect their daily lives, and to know that the dollars being collected from them are spent wisely. In a representative democracy the right of the public to be informed and provide input is
actually a responsibility as well, and one that is vital to the survival of any form of self-government.
Newspapers have long been counted on to provide information to the public and keep governments accountable to the people they serve. We take our role as watchdogs of
government seriously, for when
agencies are left to do their
business in the dark, it has been welldocumented that there is a far greater chance of wasteful spending, fraud and abuse.
It used to be that a person could buy a newspaper subscription, and be up to date on local and state governments through the notices published every week. Over the course of the past 10 years, governments in Wyoming have lobbied to change state statutes to eliminate many of the public notices you used to find in newspapers in favor of posting them on websites controlled by governments themselves.
Unfortunately, government agencies are reluctant to have the public looking too closely at their actions and expenditures, so the people of Wyoming know less and less about what their money is being spent on — and as we’ve learned from our coverage of the newest state facility in Weston County, that allows government to spend far more than it should.
Members of this community first informed the News Letter Journal of a new game and fish station being erected just outside the city limits of Newcastle, and it was those citizens who first began asking questions.
We’re glad they did.
The spotlight on the more than $600,000 project has revealed many flaws to the general public, but the most significant one is that the public was left in the dark for eight years while the Wyoming Game and Fish Department determined the best way to repair or replace the facility that had served the department in our community since 1946.
Unfortunately, our experience in trying to provide you with information about this project appears to indicate that the community has
intentionally been kept out of the loop, as we encountered multiple roadblocks in trying to determine what the cost of the project was and why it was undertaken.     
When first learning of the
construction, a number of calls were made to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department by NLJ reporters and editors, and messages were left — none of which were returned. A first and second formal request were made for a public bid notice on the project, and after the second request we were informed the notice was put on the website publicpurchase.com, as required under the laws and regulations that govern public notification in Wyoming.
The website publicpurchase.com is used by contractors to find and bid on state projects, and WGFD officials indicated their belief that the website posting also satisfied the requirement of informing the general public of the plan to expend a significant amount of state money in Weston County. The News Letter Journal was informed that registration would be required on the site to search and view this notice and others like it, but assurances were given that such a search could be conducted for free.
It is offensive that a member of the public is asked to ‘register’ and provide personal information to state government in order to access
information that is classified as ‘public’ under Wyoming law, and it is fair to ask what the state is doing with this private and personal information — and how it is being secured from hackers and other online criminals.
But even more troubling is the fact that when we followed the steps to register for ‘free’ access to the notices we had requested, we still were not able to search for the notice, even though we knew the bid number and dates on which the notice ran. 
We were instead constantly
redirected to a screen where we would have to pay $399 to have unlimited access to search the notices posted on publicpurchase.com, even though Wyoming law clearly states that a member of the public can not be charged a fee to inspect an existing public record.
The process was frustrating — and we believe that most citizens would have simply given up had they tried to obtain this information on their own — but we persisted in our quest to gather and publish information on a game station that is being built to serve our community, because we think it is important for citizens to know how and why public funds are spent. 
(This is especially true at a time when the State of Wyoming is faced with a structural budget deficit, and no solutions have been identified to address the deficiency.)
While this state-approved form of “public notification” clearly fails the citizens of Wyoming, we believe this exercise also demonstrates that it is contributing to the state’s budget woes by preventing the public from doing its job to rein in spending and provide input to the state officials who are supposed to serve them.
WGFD failed our community and our state by not allowing citizens to have a voice in what kind of station would best serve the public’s needs, and where it should be located. The agency boasts a budget over $81 million, and a plan to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars here should have involved at least some attempt to notify residents. At the least, a public meeting should have been held in Newcastle to make people aware of the investment being made.
We believe the public should be given an opportunity to comment on whether or not a game warden living in a game station best meets their needs, or if the more easily accessible office space in town is more suitable for members of the public to conduct their business. 
In addition to being more suitable for public use, the present space is being provided rent-free, and we believe an informed public would have stepped up to urge a more frugal use of state resources.
A number of things have also changed since 1937, when the
policy originated that dictates game wardens live in a game station. We believe WGFD should justify to the public why license holders today are still financially responsible for providing a game warden with a residence and paying for all utilities, insurance and taxes.
We do not know what an average game warden salary was in 1937, as the agency could not provide this information when we requested it of them, but according to the most recent information the agency did provide, a Wyoming game warden makes an average yearly wage of $62,244, not including benefits/housing.
There was a time when licenses were purchased at game stations, but now they are bought in a store or online through the WGFD website. That option did not exist in 1937.
Cell phones also did not exist in 1937, but they now allow a game warden to meet people at the lake, out in the field, at a gas station or countless other convenient locations. Perhaps an office on four wheels — which is already being provided — best serves the public in the 21st Century.
(And there is plenty of storage space in our community and available for rent that should be more than sufficient to house the equipment needed for WGFD purposes.)
It doesn’t seem as if public convenience was ever given much consideration on this project, however, especially considering that the only properties even considered by WGFD as listed in the feasibility study they provided to the NLJ were on Musser Road or in the immediate vicinity. Had the public not been left out of the equation, the vast majority of residents could have easily informed the agency that there are a number of other properties much more accessible to the public — and probably at a significantly lower cost than the $80,000 that was paid for a little more than five acres.
At a time when our state, as a whole, is trying to figure out how to keep paying its bills, every agency should be scrutinizing their budgets for savings, and the Newcastle game station’s current price tag of $608,444.02 proves that the public does a far better job of scrutinizing those budgets and producing savings than government agencies do.
Instead of allowing citizens to exercise their rights and perform their duties, however, the State of Wyoming has taken the public notices out of the communities
themselves. Citizens are instead required to ‘register’ with the g
overnment, provide personal and private information on a supposedly secure online database and pay a $399 fee to simply be able to search for information that members of the public are supposed to have free access to under state law.
An informed public really is the best defense against wasteful spending, fraud and abuse by the government. We urge you to contact state legislators and other officials and ask them why you should have to spend $399 to do your job.