Suffolk bloggers deserve press releases

So, what's the cost of adding an address to an e-mail list?

Precisely nothing.

What's the cost of not adding an address to an e-mail list?

Plenty.

Sometimes it seems as if Suffolk's City Hall goes out of its way to commit sins against the notion of open government. In the current case, according to a report by Pilot staffer Dave Forster, the city has decided not to e-mail press releases to the people associated with the Inside Suffolk Web log.

Granted, the folks at Inside Suffolk can be a dyspeptic lot, often critical of what they argue are confiscatory taxes, self-dealing and other corruptions. At least a few posters are currently running for positions at the City Council table.

None of that matters. What matters is that citizens have asked for copies of some of the city's most public documents and have been refused a courtesy for no sufficient reason.

This current City Hall, under new management, is shut tighter and more completely than at anytime in recent memory. Given how closed it has been in the past, that's indeed saying something. Employees now literally worry that a wayward word to a reporter might cost them their jobs.

The city's refusal to e-mail press releases (trust us, fellas, you're not missing much) may have as much to do with the content and manner of the blog as with the difficulty of typing an extra e-mail address. Except that governments are expressly forbidden from discriminating in this way, and no other municipal government in the region does.

Not that it matters, but by the standards of the blogosphere, Inside Suffolk is a positively civilized place, often thoughtful and with many folks owning up - by name - to their arguments.

Now, though, the city has stirred the pot.

Restricting access to public information, simply because it can, argues persuasively that the current administration at City Hall cares more about its own interests than the public's. That's the moment at which changes are required.