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Orlando Sentinel None better for open government Jason Garcia Tallahassee Bureau TALLAHASSEE — It happened almost 15 years ago, but the woman generally regarded as the leading open-government expert in Florida can still recall the moment. Pat Gleason, then a relatively unknown lawyer in the attorney general's office, had traveled to a legal seminar for government attorneys, bringing with her copies of the “Government-in-the-Sunshine Manual,” the bible for people who need to know the laws governing public meetings and records. “One of the speakers took the Sunshine manual and ripped it in two. Just ripped it in two. He said, ‘Don't pay any attention to any of this,'.” Gleason said. Pat Gleason doesn't get that kind of reception anymore. Today, she runs Florida's first-ever Office of Open Government, handpicked by Gov. Charlie Crist to make sure people throughout state government understand — and follow — the state's public-records law. “It's what makes a democracy work..... It makes government accountable,” Gleason said. “Without open government, then the people are merely bystanders in the democratic process.” Established by an executive order Crist issued on his first day as governor, the two-month-old office has already identified and published the names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of the public-records contacts in more than 35 state agencies, from the Department of Education to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Public-records advocates say the emphasis on openness is a stunning change in a state Capitol where secrecy has long been common. Former Gov. Jeb Bush spent his first day in office in January 1999 meeting privately with the Senate president and Speaker of the House. Crist calls the Office of Open Government “a powerful signal to people throughout Florida that this is their government.” And he says that Gleason, whose 30 years working under five attorney generals included four under Crist himself, is the right person to send it. “There's none better,” Crist said. “Without a doubt, her heart's in it. She's devoted to it.” It's been a lofty climb for Gleason, 55, who first arrived at the attorney general's office in 1976 as an intern still studying for the Bar exam. She had come to Florida to enroll at Rollins College in Winter Park — following it with law school at Florida State — leaving behind “six feet of snow, it seemed like, and zero degrees” in Rochester, N.Y. Back then, Gleason hadn't given much thought to open government or public records. But she was put to work for a woman who did. Sharyn Smith, who headed the opinions division for then-Attorney General Robert Shevin, wrote the very first Sunshine manual (it's now in its 29th edition) and kept a map behind her desk with pins in it to mark all the public-records lawsuits the office was involved in. Gleason became Smith's top deputy. At a time when few governments agreed about just what Florida's Sunshine and public-records laws covered, the pair threw themselves into writing opinions about those laws and suing governments that defied them. Most of the early disputes involved governments trying to sidestep the law, such as cities that closed meetings whenever a lawyer discussed a lawsuit or others that hid negotiations with a private business by asking the business to store all records. One of the highest-profile cases the pair worked on involved the Jacksonville Electric Authority, which hired an outside consultant to conduct a job search and ordered that consultant to keep any related documents confidential. The Florida Supreme Court ultimately ruled that those records were public. The two lawyers, both in their mid-20s, regularly spent entire nights in the attorney general's law library preparing for oral arguments, breaking only for 3 a.m. taco runs to a nearby Jack In The Box. “We always had people arguing with us about just about everything. It was just a contentious period of time,” said Smith, who eventually became the chief judge at the Florida Division of Administrative Hearings. “For the most part, it was just the two of us.” Gleason took over the office's lead public-records role in 1990, after a 10-year stint focusing on other legal areas and raising two children at home. She became editor of the Sunshine manual. She founded a mediation program to help resolve public-records disputes. And she became a frequent resource for reporters highlighting potential Sunshine law violations; the Orlando Sentinel has quoted her more than two dozen times. Gleason also continued to turn out opinions and litigate when necessary. Diminutive and warm, she delivered airtight legal arguments with such charm that people wanted to agree with her, said Jon Kaney, the general counsel for both the First Amendment Foundation and the Daytona Beach News-Journal. Kaney recalled a case Gleason argued before the Florida Supreme Court even though she was fighting a cold. “Pat had such a terrible cold and she's standing up there trying to argue and Gerry [former Justice Gerald Kogan] was getting so upset about her pain. I thought he was going to come down from the bench and offer her chicken soup,” Kaney said. Gleason said she found a kindred spirit in Crist when he was elected attorney general in 2002. She points to questions that arose after a 2002 constitutional amendment passed requiring the Florida Legislature to approve any exemptions to the state's public-records laws by a two-thirds vote, rather than a simple majority. Some lawmakers contended that the amendment should not apply to bills that merely renewed the dozens of already-existing exemptions, and it fell to Crist to issue an opinion. Gleason says Crist didn't hesitate. The higher standard applied. Crist was campaigning for governor when he said he first thought of creating an open-government office. But recruiting Gleason turned out to be trickier than he thought. Gleason was having lunch with her sister at Food Glorious Food, a popular Tallahassee restaurant, just a few weeks after the November election, when the governor-elect called her cell phone and asked her to join him. “And she said, ‘Well, I don't know if I have time to do it,'.” Crist said. Gleason said she had simply assumed she would stay on at the attorney general's office. But when Crist laid out his plans for the new office, she relented. Though some initially viewed it as little more than window dressing, Gleason says the Office of Open Government has already had an impact.. Identifying each of the agency public-records custodians — which are listed on the office's website, www.flgov.com/og_home — was itself an accomplishment for a state bureaucracy that sprawls across dozens of departments, divisions and commissions. The office is also coordinating open-government training sessions for up to 500 agency managers. Gleason has even urged reporters to alert her office whenever they make public-records requests, so she can monitor compliance. People in the Governor's Office say Gleason's presence influences internal decisions, too. When staffers were preparing for a joint press conference featuring Crist and Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink — who, as members of the state Cabinet, are forbidden from discussing public business in private — they decided to brief each of them in separate rooms. “The most important thing is the attitude,” said Gleason, a widow who spends much of her free time playing in a city tennis league. “I mean, anyone can make someone sit in a room and listen to something. But if you can educate people to realize that open government is good government — that it's the right thing to do — then that's the main goal that we're trying to reach.” That doesn't mean Florida's government won't be pushed a little further into the shade this year. As it does every spring, the Florida Legislature is considering a host of new laws that would snap off access to certain public records. Proposed exemptions to public-records laws filed this year include a measure that would allow public hospital search committees to meet in private when they discuss job candidates, and another that would extend — forever — the length of time economic development agencies can withhold certain information about businesses they're recruiting. Several bills seeking to exempt personal information contained in many public documents — including names and e-mail addresses — have also been filed, amid concerns about identity theft. But Crist, who must decide whether to sign or veto any measure, said he would take a narrow view of legislation seeking to tighten-public records law. The only exceptions, he said, would be for security concerns following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “That's really about the only mitigating factor that I would consider,” Crist said.
Jason Garcia can be reached at jrgarcia@orlandosentinel.com or |