But don't expect Monroe County Legislature to put proposed legislation online anytime soon. At a legislature committee meeting on Monday, Republicans voted down a Democratic plan to put the proposals on the county's website.

County Legislator Steve Eckel, who represents parts of Irondequoit and the City of Rochester, submitted the proposal to create a legislative database. Citing the county's award-winning website, he suggested that the database would make the site more useful to the public. It would increase the average person's access to information and would enhance debate about county issues, he said in his proposal. And, said Eckel, making county government more accessible could help soothe a public that has grown tired of scandals in government. What's not to like? Apparently, the price tag. The Brooks administration sent the county's chief information officer, Nelson Rivera, to Monday's committee meeting. Rivera countered Eckel's claim that his proposal wouldn't create additional costs. "We would have to develop this database from scratch," Rivera told the committee. That would cost about $10,000, he said. The county would also need a new scanner and some new software, each a couple of hundred dollars. Finally, he estimated, it would cost about $20,000 in additional staff time to operate and maintain the system. Legislature Clerk David Barry said that paper copies of proposals are readily available from his office, and that no one's been denied copies since he started work in January. His office's phone number is posted on the web. In a budget of over a billion dollars, $31,000 might seem like a bargain if it buys a little more open government. But that may not be the only factor at work here.

County Republicans, who control the legislature, may have seen Eckel's move less as an attempt to promote openness in government and more as way to embarrass them. Legislature Republicans have used all manner of procedural tricks to keep Democrats from getting legislation passed. Usually, proposals from Democrats don't even make it to the full legislature. Instead, they get tabled or voted down in committee. Or they get referred to the Brooks administration (from which they never seem to return). A proposal to televise legislature meetings on local access cable was referred to the legislature's clerk, for example. The clerk's office responded with a detailed letter to the effect that the idea was too difficult and too expensive.