One of Texas Watchdog's initiatives in the new year will be to profile individuals who have done a great deal to promote government transparency in their local government or throughout the state.

Our first profile in 2010 will be of Collin County Judge Keith Self. Not only did Self successfully push to make Collin County more open and transparent by webcasting and archiving Commissioners Court sessions, he also pushed to place the county checkbook online for anyone to view.

It may be the first county in the United States to have done that.

Watch for Self's profile to come early in 2010.

Look at a previous profile we've done on Keith Elkins of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.

The Texas Watchdog team has compiled a list of other folks to profile, but we'd really love to hear from you. If you have any suggestions of someone you think we should we should know about who has been on the forefront of government transparency --- from elected officials to community activists to anyone in between --- we would like to know.

Shoot me your suggestions at trent@texaswatchdog.org.

And keep watching our blog so you can get a heads up for for other initiatives that we'll be rolling out this year.

Trent Seibert, editor, Texas Watchdog.