Key West Citizen

Sunshine Sunday about more than nice weather No matter what the sky looks like, today is Sunshine Sunday. The day is designated by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors and The Citizen heartily endorses the effort.

The idea is to remind our readers, ourselves and most importantly our public officials of the importance of openness in government — government that is, after all, of the people, by the people and for the people. We pay for it. We own it. We have the right to know what it's up to.

These days, that position is under increasing attack, especially at the national level, where secrecy in government is increasing at a frightening rate.

There is, for example, the mass reclassification of previously public documents at the National Archives, a program that has been going on for seven years and was recently revealed in The New York Times.

The program, run by intelligence agencies under authorization from a memo that is itself classified, was unearthed by historians who were surprised to find thousands of documents previously available had disappeared from the shelves.

According to the New York Times, these include "decades-old State Department reports from the Korean War and the early cold war."

The memo authorizing this re-classification was signed during the Clinton administration, but the current regime has ramped up the secrecy significantly. According to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, an early indicator was a memo from then-Attorney General John Ashcroft in October, 2001, telling federal agencies "to no longer presume the public had a right to government information and to look instead for a legal basis to turn down [Freedom of Information Act] requests."

Why does this matter? Because when the sun is not shining on our public officials — the people we elect, the people we employ, the people who are supposed to be doing what is best for us — then there is little accountability and the temptations are great to give in to the easy way, the profitable way, to favoring friends.

Florida has been a leader in efforts to shine light on government activities. The state's public records laws are national models and the Sunshine Law has strict requirements intended to ensure that the public's business takes place in public view, with public notice ahead of time.

Still, it is a difficult law to enforce and most cases deal with the technicalities — such as providing the required public advance notice of meetings — rather than the more complicated question of whether public officials are talking to each other about public business behind closed doors.

That may be about to change here in the Keys. State Attorney Mark Kohl has issued subpoenas to county commissioners, their executive assistants and the county administrator, seeking e-mails, office and cell phone records between Jan. 1 and Feb. 17.

The investigation comes after publicly aired questions about the Feb. 15 dismissal of former County Attorney Richard Collins, an item that was added to the County Commission agenda on the day of the meeting and approved 3-2, with Mayor Sonny McCoy and commissioners Murray Nelson and Dixie Spehar in favor, commissioners George Neugent and David Rice against.

Kohl deserves the public's gratitude for taking the Sunshine Law seriously. Of course, county commissioners and other elected officials may speak to each other privately about matters that are not the public's business.

But we fear that many in our community have become lax about the law's rigorous requirements and have fallen into the habit of talking about important issues outside of public view.

At the very least, Kohl's investigation will serve as a wake-up call and reminder that the Sunshine Law is a serious requirement and it's there for a reason. It may reveal far more.

On this Sunshine Sunday, we congratulate Kohl and remind everyone that this is our business, these people work for us, and we have the right to expect decisions about our common future to be made with our input and our knowledge.

Reproduced courtesy of the Key West Citizen.
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