This post originally appeared at pantagraph.com.

Part of America’s government framework is the ability to watch and follow lawmakers do their jobs. The media — and by extension, the public — is part and parcel of that, tasked with a responsibility to make sure government and its workers remain open and transparent in conducting the public’s business.

So hats off to the City of Bloomington for its much-improved “transparency score” as presented by the Illinois Policy Institute, a free-market think tank. The city jumped 26 percent in its score, to 77.2 percent, from its last review, and city leaders hope to increase the score even more when they add a “transparency portal” to the city’s website, www.cityblm.org.

As noted in a recent story, McLean County scored 44.4 percent in its 2013 IPI audit and the Town of Normal scored 75 percent in its 2011 audit. Website transparency may not accurately reflect a government’s actual transparency (it may be quite easy to walk in a door and request a document unavailable on a website), but we’re glad to see local leaders moving forward with making more public documents accessible on the Internet.

But as the public’s familiarity with electronic communication grows, inevitable growing pains can come with it — as evidenced in a “transparency” issue earlier the same week. It’s a cautionary tale for all of us.

Diane Benjamin of Ellsworth is founder of the McLean County Tea Party. She also has an online blog in which she shares her thoughts about local government and other issues. She recently took offense with Bloomington Mayor Tari Renner, who disagreed with Benjamin’s stance on a city decision involving Alderwoman Judy Stearns.

Apparently, the mayor had had enough when he read Benjamin’s post, and he responded in a less-than-mayoral tone with a public comment on her blog.

Benjamin — rarely temperate herself — was “shocked” by the comments and told The Pantagraph they were “very inappropriate. … The overall tone was just condescending.”

A vigorous debate keeps government healthy and its lawmakers honest. But true debate is based on truth, provability, advocacy and understanding. False or unkind words — from either side — only undermine the work that needs to be done.