The News-Press

Help us keep government in the sunshine

This past year was historic for use of public records by The News-Press and news-press.com — and by you.

The Internet allows public records to be the basis of a new kind of partnership between readers and newspapers.

In the case of the controversial Cape Coral utilities project, we used the public records law to gain access to contracts, invoices, engineering estimates, billing sheets, phone logs, audit reports and personnel files to create almost 20 spreadsheets for readers to analyze. This helped thousands of homeowners save $4,000 or more each. More savings are possible as the project evolves.

The accompanying list details some of the high points of the public records work we did on your behalf in 2006.

Note that today is “Sunshine Sunday” for newspapers across the state and country. It begins a weeklong effort to underline the significance of open government, point out the threats to it and the role the public can play in keeping government open.

This is not just a press fetish, although public records are certainly the tools of our trade, and we fight for them like hungry dogs. Open government makes it possible for the press to serve as your government watchdog, one of the functions that got us a mention in the First Amendment. It’s our job, and our constitutional duty, and we can’t do it without public records.

But free access to records and meetings is essential to democracy. Without it, the public cannot know what its elected representatives and employees are up to and why, and cannot make informed political decisions.

Florida has some of the country’s best open records and open meeting laws, but as always, there is a raft of bills in the Legislature this year chipping away at your right to know what government is doing. These measures would add to the hundreds of exemptions carved out of the open government acts without good justification.

Adria Harper, director of the valuable First Amendment Foundation in Tallahassee, is tracking close to 100 bills affecting open government already this session. Not all are bad or create exemptions, but many are worrisome, as are the “shell bills,” created with content to be filled in later, perhaps in the hectic waning hours of the session when nobody will notice.

We will inform you of these as the current legislative session continues, and ask you to urge lawmakers and Gov. Charlie Crist to block them.

Crist has set a high standard, creating an Office of Open Government on his first day in office in January. We should insist that he deliver on this inspiring promise of government accountability, making Florida once again a pioneer in open government.

With the Internet at everyone’s fingertips, public records can and must be available to individuals and groups on a million different missions. The use of records spreads as people redefine what it means to be a journalist or an interest group.

It’s an exciting time to be a citizen — if our rights are preserved.

That cause, too, should be a partnership between the public and the press.

Reproduced courtesy of The News-Press.
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