Gimenez posts calendar on the Internet, but promised more than that

Local politicians often list their own biographies and initiatives on government websites -- but their whereabouts at 3 p.m. on Tuesday? A politician's schedule for the day can be tougher to track down -- even though it's a public record.

While running for Miami-Dade mayor in the summer of 2011, Carlos Gimenez wrote in his Miami Herald editorial board questionnaire:

"I would also post my calendar on the Internet. Everyone should be able to see who I am meeting with and what we are discussing."

On the afternoon of Oct. 31, 2011, Gimenez started posting his calendar. When we first looked at the calendar Nov. 1, we saw four events listed for the day: director's agenda meeting, tour of the airport, meeting with deputy mayor Alina Hudak and a meet and greet with the minister of justice of Saudi Arabia. The events showed the time and location but generally not the purpose of the meeting -- for example no topics were listed for the meeting with Hudak, but it's self-explanatory that at the director's agenda meeting the officials would discuss an agenda for an upcoming meeting.

The calendar only listed events for Nov. 1 -- we saw nothing posted when we clicked on several future days. The county will post Gimenez's events for the next day on the previous afternoon and the public will be able to see past events but not future ones since Gimenez's calendar often changes, said county spokeswoman Suzy Trutie in an e-mail. All county appointments, meetings and events will be listed including meetings Gimenez has with lobbyists, politicians, business leaders, reporters and staff, Trutie said. Personal and campaign events won't be posted.

Although on the first day Gimenez's online calendar lacked the meeting topics, Trutie said the county will add brief descriptions.

We checked in with a few other large counties in Florida to see if they post their mayor's or chair's calendar on the Internet. In neighboring Broward County, the public can search the visitors' log for all the commissioners and the mayor (In Broward, commissioners select a mayor from among themselves while in Dade the public votes for a mayor.) By looking at Broward Mayor Sue Gunzburger's log we found more details about meetings than in Dade -- for example on Oct. 13 she met with state Rep. Evan Jenne about "Proposed legislation RE: Inspector General/School Board." (To read more about Jenne's proposed law read this Broward politics blog.)

Hillsborough, Palm Beach and Orange counties don't post the mayor or the chair's individual calendar online.

Gimenez promised to post his calendar so everyone could see who he is meeting with and "what we are discussing." He started meeting the first half of that goal by posting the calendar on the Internet, but he is missing the "what we are discussing." We rate this promise In the Works.