Fitchburg website should be updated

An S&E article in December referenced a report by Common Cause that discussed the documentation available on local municipal websites.

You can navigate information about the report at Open Government by clicking on the "Massachusetts Campaign for Open Government" link.

Fitchburg as noted in the "All Municipalities" table fails to publish it's budget and the minutes of the city council meetings. It's actually a little worse than that because they also frequently fail to get council meeting agendas published in a timely manner, sometimes publishing the agenda after the meeting or not at all.

In anycase, the reason I bring this up is because earlier this year the council approved the following petition

83-06 Councillor Dean A. Tran and Councillor Ted E. DeSalvatore, to implement the necessary technologies to have all forms, applications, instructions, directions, payment methods and public communications from all depts. in City Hall to be on-line.

and sent it to the Mayor's office.

Now according to the city code

Sec. 55. Approval and veto by mayor of orders, etc.
Every order, ordinance, resolution and vote relative to the affairs of the city, adopted or passed by the city council, shall be presented to the mayor for his approval. If he approves it he shall sign it; if he disapproves it he shall return it, with his written objections, to the city council, which shall enter the objections at large on its records, and again consider it. If the city council, notwithstanding such disapproval of the mayor, shall again pass such order, ordinance, resolution or vote by a two-thirds vote of all its members, it shall then be in force, but such vote shall not be taken for seven days after its return to the city council. Every such order, ordinance, resolution and vote shall be in force if not returned by the mayor within ten days after it has been presented to him. This section shall not apply to budgets submitted under section thirty-two of chapter forty-four or to appropriations by a city council under section thirty-three of said chapter. (1915, 267, II, Sec. 10.)

I don't recall seeing anything about the petition being returned to the council, so unless I'm wrong the order passed. Based on the article, as well as recent visits to the Fitchburg website it seems the Mayor has yet to implement it.

I think it's high time for that to change.