Naples Daily News

Editorial: Open government ‘Sunshine’ good for us all

Daily News staff Sunday, March 11, 2007

Good morning.

Make that a bright, sunshiny morning.

Today is Sunshine Sunday, as newspapers throughout Florida and a growing number around the country pause to take stock of government-in-the-sunshine and open-records laws that aim to make sure the public’s business is done in public.

It is the sixth annual reminder that these laws apply to everyday citizens as well as the news media’s rights to observe proceedings and get — actually, demand — copies of public records. We all have an interest in safeguarding such laws and their applications.

This year we need not look far nor long for reasons why Sunshine Sunday sheds important light.

You would think that Southwest Florida public officials would take the hint about meeting and talking in anything other than formally announced public meetings. Officials keep track of what’s going on around them, especially concerning fellow public officials, and by now they know of Marco Island City Council’s exchanges of secretive e-mails on public policy, Collier County and city of Naples officials’ lobbying trip to Washington and county commissioners surprising affected parties by acting on funding for affordable housing and boat speeds on Naples Bay without prior notice.

All of that was lost on six of the nine members of the Collier County Planning Commission, who enjoyed lunch together the other day at an outdoor picnic table at the snack bar of the county government complex.

The sunshine on that glorious winter day did not suffice for the sunshine that calls for policy-shapers to avoid even the perception of meeting in private.

Participants say that lunching in such a public place works in their favor. Actually, lunching in such a public place says the participants are oblivious to perceptions and think of it as business as usual — and they don ’t care who knows it.

The bottom line — and one of the messages of Sunshine Sunday — is that government officials, even those in volunteer roles such as the Planning Commission, ought to have confidence and pride in what they do. That means executing the public trust in full view of the public. They were not elected or appointed to have lunch with each other and be buddies. One of the picnicking planners ought to be acutely aware of that. He is Russell Tuff, publisher of a string of local weekly papers affiliated with the Daily News.

Meanwhile, Naples and Collier have far from an exclusive franchise on being sunshine-challenged. The Lee County school system has tried to withhold public records from a School Board member, then charge him for copies; Bonita Springs City Council members used to do lunch and make side comments to each other at meetings; and the Estero Fire District board gave us the classic bad example by firing unionized firefighters near midnight in 1997.

We save the best for last — a big tip of the cap for Naples City Attorney Bob Pritt. Responding to a request from council members upset with media scrutiny of the Washington lobbying trip, Pritt told them what they did not — but should — want to hear: From a legal as well as perception standpoint, “my advice is it should be avoided.”

It is sound advice such as Pritt’s that will help drive home the point that Sunshine Laws are the best friends rather than the worst enemies of public servants who are dedicated to public service.

Reproduced courtesy of the Naples Daily News.
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