For use Sunday, March 15

100 years of fighting for the public’s right to know

Pat Rice
March 14, 2009

Sunday is Sunshine Sunday, a day each year when newspapers across Florida champion the state’s open-records and open-meetings laws.

This year is of special note because it’s the 100th anniversary of the genesis of Florida’s Sunshine Law, which protects your right to know how your government operates.

In 1909, a state representative from Gadsden County, J.W. Mahaffey, introduced a bill requiring that “all state, county, and municipal records shall at all times be open for a personal inspection of any citizen of Florida and those in charge of such records shall not refuse this privilege to any citizen.”

Mahaffey pretty much nailed the public’s right to know in 36 words.

Of course, mix the law (and lawyers) with politics (and politicians) and you could pretty much guarantee that the Sunshine Law would blossom into something bigger.

The Government-in-the-Sunshine Manual that sits on the corner of my desk is now 406 pages long.

The state attorney general’s office produces a new version of the manual every couple of years, as the Sunshine Law evolves.

The manual is produced in cooperation with the First Amendment Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works to protect the public’s right to know. (Full disclosure: I am a board member of the First Amendment Foundation.)

The Sunshine Law changes every time a court case related to the law is fought.

It changes when the Florida Legislature passes a bill that opens records to inspection (good!) or makes some records off-limits (bad!). There are always legislators who are willing to take away your right to know.

Just last week, First Amendment Foundation attorney Adria Harper sent out a warning about a bill that state Sen. Tony Hill, D-Jacksonville, is pushing. Hill’s bill would “create a very broad public record exemption” for all personal identifying information for current or former public school teachers, administrators and school board members.

Under the proposed bill, “personal identifying information” includes a school employee’s name, Social Security number, home address, employment status, home telephone number and photograph.

“We simply cannot imagine a school district in which the public is denied access to the names of its teachers and school board members in public records,” Harper wrote. “The absurdity speaks for itself.”

Absurd, yes.

But not so absurd that the First Amendment Foundation and its members won’t need to take time and money to lobby against the misguided bill.

Of course, you don’t need to travel to Tallahassee to find people willing to place a cloud over the Sunshine Law.

Just last spring, the board of trustees of what was then Okaloosa-Walton College (now Northwest Florida State College) held a private meeting 150 miles away in Tallahassee with state Rep. Ray Sansom, R-Destin.

The meeting was arranged by Sansom and the college president, James “Bob” Richburg, to discuss the possibility of expanding the college’s four-year degree program. In an e-mail exchange in advance of the meeting (thankfully, e-mail exchanges between public officials are public under the Sunshine Law), both expressed a desire for privacy.

“Think about a meeting in Tall. with you, the trustees of OWC, and me to talk about the proposed college change and the system questions,” Richburg e-mailed to Sansom. “It’s probably the only way we can do it in privacy but with a public notice here.”

Sansom replied: “That would be great!! We can get a private room on 6th floor at FSU.”

The college placed a legal notice about the so-called “legislative briefing” in the Northwest Florida Daily News a week before the trustees met March 24, 2008, in a private room at FSU. No one kept minutes of the meeting, as is required under the Sunshine Law.

Attorney General Bill McCollum has since called the meeting “very questionable.” The meeting is also part of an ongoing grand jury inquiry into the relationship between the college and Sansom.

Richburg and Sansom deny any effort to skirt the Sunshine Law.

OK.

Here’s hoping both of them will work more to champion the spirit and letter of the Sunshine Law in the future.

And here’s hoping the public will continue to fight for the right to know. Pat Rice is director of content for Florida Freedom Newspapers. He can be reached at patrickr@nwfdailynews.com. Read his blog at nwfdailynews.com.

Reproduced courtesy of the Northwest Florida Daily News.
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