200 WORD RESPONSE to this post

 I think citizens are trying to become more trustworthy of local governments. The government agencies will have to gain the trust back of the citizens because they have not been transparent enough in the past. Some agencies, depending on the location, have not become fully transparent and this will hurt the agencies that are trying to being open and honest with their communities. I think the agencies that are not transparent will hurt other transparent agencies because it only takes one negative action to create a trust issue. I do think the more transparency an agency shows the more likely people will show interest in what the agency has to offer. In my area, we have fire districts that post weekly stats on response times, funding projects, employee highlights, among others, then we have districts that do not post anything; the departments that do not post anything have very little community support. I think this is a good example of how transparency can help departments if they continue to put forth the effort to reach their communities.