Metro riders and the Washington region’s taxpayers who pay much of the transit system’s costs, as well as residents of Alexandria, now have access to comprehensive compensation databases for both bodies.

These databases are the latest additions to the Washington Examiner Community Action Network, this newspaper’s initiative to partner with the region’s residents and civic groups in expanding the resources available for independent analyses of local and regional public services.

Readers will find the Metro workforce compensation database at: www.examiner.com/documents/DC-Examiner/MetroSalaryFile.xls.

The Alexandria City workforce compensation database is at: www.examiner.com/documents/DC-Examiner/AlexandriaCitySalary.com.xls.

Previously, ECAN has posted the Fairfax County government workforce database at: www.examiner.com/documents/DC-Examiner/FairfaxCountySalary.xls.

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And the Montgomery County Public Schools salaries database at: www.examiner.com/documents/DC-Examiner/MTG_SalaryFile.xls.

A WECAN Web site that brings all of these and many more civic action and public accountability resources together in one place on Examiner.com is under construction.

WECAN illustrates The Examiner’s commitment to the idea — unprecedented in old media — that, through the Internet, a daily newspaper can be a valuable partner with interested residents in applying what author James Surowiecki calls “The Wisdom of Crowds” to government accountability and civic activism.

Quite simply, that wisdom is the fact that all of us together are much smarter, more experienced and knowledgeable than any one of us acting alone. The Internet allows us to focus all of our collective knowledge, experience and skills on a particular problem or issue simultaneously.

By putting databases and other resources on the Internet, WECAN makes it possible to focus hundreds or even thousands of pairs of eyes and brains on key government activities or services. Compensation of public employees is of fundamental importance to the accountability process, but it is only part of it. WECAN will also be posting databases and other resources having to do with budgets, expense accounts, audits, tax rolls, health and safety inspections and much else — all with the idea of partnering with you, our readers, in doing analyses independent of official spin.

WECAN will make frequent use of the Freedom of Information laws in Virginia, the District of Columbia and Maryland, as well as the federal FOIA. We welcome readers’ suggestions of city, county and regional data you think would be useful to post. We believe the public has a right to see how its business is being conducted by elected and appointed officials and by professional public employees. That right is why the founders of this nation wrote the First Amendment to guarantee an independent press.

Admittedly, we’ve been awfully slow about getting the word out about WECAN. This initiative is without precedent and to be sure there are kinks to work out as it is developed. If you would like to see your civic group become involved with WECAN, please contact: Mark Tapscott, editorial page editor, at mtapscott@dcexaminer.com.