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Naples Daily News
How did that humungous high-rise get approved?
How did those tax dollars get blown on paying a public official to quit?
Who paid to put all these politicians into office?
Who is accountable?
Those fundamental questions about local governance — we've all asked them after seeing something incredible in the newspaper — come to mind on this annual observance of Sunshine Sunday. Florida newspapers' mission today is to celebrate our state's open-government Sunshine Laws by showing their importance and building solid constituencies for their protection.
Across the state today there will be reminders that access to public records and public decision-making is more than an assurance that journalists will have ample fodder for juicy stories. Sunshine Laws comprise the foundation of democracy and the key to good government.
Journalists do a poor job of getting this across to the public: the news media enjoy no level of records access greater than the everyday citizen who seeks copies of property transactions, zoning rules or public agencies' budgets. Likewise, each obstacle has a ripple effect and sets a dangerous precedent for us all.
For proof, consider examples of wasteful and other insider deals by local government in the past few years — the kinds of stories that politicians decry as bad press and bad publicity. They spring from individual and group conduct from one end of Southwest Florida to the other, including the Collier County School Board, Collier County Commission, Naples City Council, Bonita Springs City Council, the North Naples Fire Department and the Estero Fire Department.
Show us a bad decision and we will show you, more often than not, a decision made while bending an open records or open meeting law or following a procedure that does not require case-by-case handling at open meetings. At the same time, when a cure is sought for what ills government, sunshine is usually part of the answer. Example: to solve a rash of abuses during criminal interrogations, state lawmakers are thinking of ordering them all recorded and made public upon request.
The only officials who have cause to fear the sunshine of public access are those who are shamed of what they are doing or who do not know what they are doing or who are following a private rather than public agenda. Smart politicians, epecially those who resent special-interest pressure, know Sunshine Laws are their best friends. They want you to see the good work they are doing and how wisely they are spending your money.
There is nothing like a dose of sunshine — especially via televised meetings, with plenty of reruns — to straighten up local governance.
That is more than pie-in-the-sky theory for eggheads. That is the bottom line as we let the sunshine in on Sunshine Sunday.