FSNE - Sunshine Sunday

Newspaper work is a business where thick skin is a must. Just about every day, someone is ticked off about something we do, or didn’t do, so you learn to live with it.

So I rarely take anything personally at work. It’s not personal. It’s business. Unless someone is trying to destroy my life, politicians who go for the jugular don’t bother me. It’s just the way it is.

However, there is one area where I do take it personally: the Sunshine Law.

Someone denies me the right to see a document, or gives me a hard time about it, or insists I submit the request in writing (which is nowhere in the law), I take that personally.

Someone tries to keep me from a public meeting, or I hear about politicians gathering in secret, I take that personally.

And here’s why: In Florida, we have a right to an open government. Someone denies me that right, I take it personal even if the request is for a professional reason.

While legislators each year try to create more and more exemptions to the Sunshine Law, the truth is Florida has one of the most accessible open government laws in the country. As I like to say, just about everything the government does, someone writes it down and sticks it in a folder. And we are allowed to see it.

Today is the first day of Sunshine Week, a statewide initiative developed by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors to create awareness to the public of why these laws are so important. That awareness is even more necessary in Citrus County, where public participation in the government is, at times, mind-boggling.

Last year, newspapers throughout Florida recruited ordinary citizens to make public-records requests from various local governments. The idea was to see how workers in agencies, from a small city hall to the Capitol, knew their Sunshine Law.

We did a much smaller version this year. We tested five Citrus County governments -— School Board, County Commission, sheriff, cities of Inverness and Crystal River — on their public records knowledge. We sent out one of our intern copy editors to ask for what I thought was pretty simple stuff.

The results, as you see on Page 1A of today’s paper, were mixed. Our guy got bulldozed completely by two governments (Crystal River and the county) and Inverness told him to put the request in writing.

Oddly, his attempts at the school district went unheeded because no one answered the phone in the personnel office when he called. (And here’s a strange coincidence. The intern is Jonathan Deutschman. His mom is chairwoman of the School Board.)

Only the sheriff gets top marks. We wanted to see Sheriff Jeff Dawsy’s personnel file. Our guy called on a Thursday and was told he could see the file by Monday. A two-day turnaround is completely fair. That was very good news.

As for the others, not so good.

This is serious stuff. Newspaper reporters ask for public records all the time. Most of the above agencies are pretty good about getting it to us right away. We need them as pieces to the puzzle we’re writing.

But when an unknown from the community asks and gets stonewalled, that’s bad, bad public policy. And it must change. Today.

Now, it’s possible we caught people at a bad time and all that stuff. And a one-day snapshot should not indict an entire agency. But in three cases, the local governments told our guy to do something that is not required by law.

It’s simple: You do not have to give your name. You do not have to say why you want it. You do not have to put the request in writing.

Three absolute, simple facts about the public records law. The county and Inverness governments were outright wrong to tell our guy he needed to put something in writing. Crystal River was flat out wrong to say we couldn’t see files because the personnel director was out for a few days. Doesn’t she have a boss?

Folks, this is your law. It is your right. Yeah, I ask for this stuff for a living, but I’d think it’s more important for ordinary Joes because they are the ones who the laws are written for. If governments are giving to reporters but cold to the other public, that is simply and plainly wrong.

I’ve said it a hundred times and I’ll say it again: These records, these documents, these things belong to us, not the county attorney! Not the city council! Us, we paid for them. They’re ours. State law says so, and it also says the government can’t give us a hard time about it.

I still encourage people to be polite when they request records. It’s always best to set up an appointment. Be prepared to pay if gathering the records will take staff time. Also be prepared to pay for copies of the records.

But do not, under any circumstance, let some bureaucrat say you can’t have something that’s rightfully yours. Make him show you the statute exemption (there’s a gazillion of them). It is his responsibility to do that. And if you don’t want to give your name, don’t. If you don’t want to say why you want to see something, don’t.

Viewing public records is a right. Yeah, it’s personal. It should be that way for everyone.

Mike Wright is a senior reporter and assistant editor for the Citrus County Chronicle.

Reproduced courtesy of the Citrus County Chronicle.