The News Herald, Panama City

Yours, not theirs

Citizen access to public records is not just the law in Florida. It is a right.

You have no constitutional right to get someone arrested, prosecuted and punished for hitting you over the head; that right belongs to the state. You do have a right to expect police and prosecutorial intervention if unaccommodating clerks and officials refuse access to public records — with no intimidating strings attached such as asking for a reason and identification, with no repeated delaying tactics — unless they can cite chapter and verse a specific lawful exemption. They must put that response in writing if you request. Otherwise, report them by name to the State Attorney’s Office or local police.

Unfortunately, each sometimes tries to pass off jurisdiction to the other. In truth, either has jurisdiction and responsibility. Neither is typically eager to apply the law to someone within the government fraternity who doesn’t want to obey the law. The fact that prosecutors and police sometime seem inclined to coddle public-payroll fellows just underscores the vital role of ordinary citizen-outsiders in making sure government works, inside, as it’s supposed to work.

There is a third option, too. The courts have no greater responsibility than as referees empowered to call foul when government does not play by the rules authorizing it to govern citizens’ lives.

A citizen should not have to file lawsuit to get the law enforced. That is a sign of corrupted government — government not working the way it’s supposed to — and an adversarial attitude toward citizens is the first sign of corruption.

Generally speaking, you have the same right to see any piece of paper or printable computer entry that public employees see in the course of their work. But if the wagons are circled at every turn, you also have a right to ask the court to make government play by the rules. Judges can order the offending office or agency to pay the legal fees.

Today, Sunshine Sunday, begins consciousness-raising Sunshine Week throughout Florida sponsored by First Amendment advocates including this newspaper. We should note that open-records laws tend to make news in their breach and not in their observance. Most public-records requests are quickly honored most of the time. The point is not to test government, but to use it.

Nonetheless, this time last year News Herald reporters who went incognito to county, municipal, school district and law enforcement offices in the seven-county metropolitan area came back with chilling stories of how they were treated as ordinary citizens. A more recent survey suggests a much-improved attitude toward inquiring citizenry. Last year, Panama City’s Downtown Improvement Board adopted a bunker mentality that virtually invited civil war between taxpayers and tax-spenders. The recent management shakeup invites a clean slate on both’s part.

We should note, too, that numerous exemptions exist. More are proposed every year the Legislature meets, and a number are passed into law. The exemptions typically are designed to protect special interests, often professional and trade associations whose licensure and contracts with government open them to unwelcome prying eyes. Relatively few exemptions affect government operations specifically.

If you are curious about any aspect of government and government records locally, you likely will be shown what you ask for. If not, after reasonable persistence, you know what to do.

Reproduced courtesy of the Panama City News Herald.
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