You aren't doing too badly, but you could do better — and here is where you should start.

League of Women Voters board member Jody Larson said that is the message the league hoped to impart in a report it released last week about Santa Fe County's record in achieving openness and transparency in government.

At the county's request, the league embarked on a transparency audit of the county more than a year ago, and spent months requesting documents, attending meetings and interviewing county staff, media representatives and residents who deal regularly with the county.

The resulting report lists 17 findings and 22 recommendations for ways the county can improve.

Larson said it was difficult for the evaluators to come up with something more definitive, because the results of the audit were so mixed.

For example, some of the information requests filed as part of the project were filled immediately the day they were requested, "but some petered out and we never heard back," Larson said.

Auditors also gave the county mixed reviews in fulfilling its responsibility to provide notice of public meetings. According to the report, meetings of the Board of County Commissioners were routinely correctly posted, but meetings of the county's myriad other committees were not. During the course of the project, at least one meeting was canceled because of lack of advance notice, and several months worth of decisions by the County Development Review Committee had to be readopted at a subsequent meeting because of lack of proper advance notice.

"The County needs to adopt a systematic approach to providing meeting dates, times and locations as well as agendas and minutes," the report stated.

Asked to come up with a letter grade for the county's compliance with the Open Meetings Act, Larson said she would give the county an A or A-minus for noticing commission meetings, but a D for other committees.

Larson said the county needs to do a better job of getting information to the public. "They can't just rely on the Internet," she said. "They need to take a multiple-track approach to getting information out."

The report found that the county's Web site "lacks essential information, a sense of organization, uniformity in approach and an overall user-friendly format," and recommends it be redesigned.

The report also recommended the county improve relations with local media outlets. "Both the local news media and the (public-information officer) believe that their relationship is, at best, only satisfactory," said the report.

The league recommended the public-information officer be "more accessible and responsive to the media and the general public," and noted that for greater accountability, the public-information officer, currently Stephen Ulibarri, should report directly to County Manager Roman Abeyta instead of to the head of Administrative Services, as he does now.

Abeyta said he was concerned with the finding and planned to meet with reporters to discover the basis for the conclusion.

"If there is not a good working relationship, that is something I need to address," he said.

Abeyta said he felt the report was fair.

"It was great that we got an outside voice to tell us where we need improvement," he said. "This report is not just going to sit on the shelf. We are going to implement it."

Some of the recommendations — such as one that the legal department be open during the noon hour to allow those who work greater access to documents — will be put into practice right away. Others, especially those that will cost money, will need to be considered more fully, Abeyta said.

Contact Phaedra Haywood at 986-3068 or phaywood@sfnewmexican.com.