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Leesburg Daily Commercial
Editorial cartoon by Packwood
Sunshine Sunday
Florida's Sunshine Law, ensuring public access to the records and meetings of government entities throughout the state, is one of the strongest such laws in the nation.
Many believe the law to be primarily a lever for the media, allowing reporters to delve into documents and sit through meetings in search of the major expose and the splashy headline.
But the Sunshine Law, which we are celebrating today as part of an effort by newspapers across the state known as Sunshine Sunday, is far more than a tool in the journalists' pack.
Its provisions serve the residents of the state and those who do business here by forcing politicians and those wishing to influence politicians to transact business under public scrutiny.
Protecting that law and limiting its exceptions are vital.
Each year, state legislators proposed dozens of new exemptions to public disclosure. Some make sense. But far too many would, if passed, shield too much government operation from the view of the taxpayer.
Even with the strongest law in the country, Florida residents find themselves stymied when they try to retrieve public documents.
Earlier this year, 30 newspapers throughout the state joined in an exercise to test the availability of public records at agencies within their circulation areas. The results: officials regularly violate the public's constitutional right to access.
In Lake County, The Daily Commercial sent an employee to three government offices to ask for a variety of documents that should have been made available, no questions asked.
Only at the City of Tavares was our employee given the requested information without a hassle. While she was asked to sign a form, she was not turned away when she declined.
In contrast, a request for e-mails exchanged between the county manager and the county commissioners met with questions about which specific e-mails were needed and then was told the county manager would have to call her back. She received no e-mails.
And when the same employee requested from the Lake County Sheriff's Office a copy of the 911 call log for a 48-hour period, she was sent from window to window, then to a phone. She was told to call dispatch, but got no answer.
More recently, a reporter's request for e-mails between Leesburg City Manager Ron Stock and County Commissioner Jennifer Hill met with different responses.
Leesburg officials said a technician would have to sit with the reporter while the reporter read the e-mails, because it involved a complicated computer program. The response came two weeks after the request. Cost for the technician and copies of the e-mails: $20.
The same request made to the County Commission office resulted in printouts of the e-mails for $2.10, and the copies were available within a day.
Overall, the 30 newspapers in the January audit of Florida's government agencies found that just 57 percent of those contacted readily complied with the provisions of the Sunshine Law. That is an abysmal record.
Governments must abide by the law, just as citizens must. Public officials work for us, and they should answer to us for their actions, their errors and their omissions.
The only way for the public to hold these officials accountable is to ensure the decisions they make and the actions they take remain open to public examination.
And it is the responsibility of each resident of the state to monitor attempts to encroach on our right to this information and thwart attempts by public and private interests to shutter the window the Sunshine Law provides.