The Daily Reporter late last week wrapped up its annual Sunshine Letters campaign, a ritual in our newsroom as predictable as the calendar and more important than spell-check.
Each December, our reporters send notices to elected officeholders throughout the county — from the mayor of Greenfield to the trustee in Green Township — to request that they notify the newspaper of all the meetings of governing bodies in advance of those meetings for the next year. According to the state’s Open Door Law, government agencies are required to give news outlets 48 hours’ notice of their meetings. Any news organization that’s serious about covering their community sends these letters.
We do this for three reasons. First, our reporters need to know when the county commissioners, the city council or the tourism commission are meeting. This is so they can attend the meetings and develop stories about their decisions and issues they discuss. We can’t attend every meeting, so we also use this crucial schedule to follow up by reading agendas and minutes or calling your representatives to talk about what happened. This is one of our most important roles in the community: keeping an eye on local government and reporting back to you, our readers, on what they’re doing.
Second, we use this information to publish in every edition and online a calendar of government meetings so you know when and where your representatives are meeting. Unless expressly allowed otherwise by statute, all meetings of governing boards are open to the public.
Finally, as the name implies, we send Sunshine Letters to make sure the government operates in the light of day.
“…This state and its political subdivisions exist only to aid in the conduct of the business of the people of this state,” reads the Open Door Law. Official actions, such as votes on matters of public importance, must be “taken openly… in order that the people may be fully informed.”
That last part — the one about fully informing the people — is a loaded clause. More on that in a minute.
For 2019, the Daily Reporter sent 36 Sunshine Letters starting on Dec. 10. As of Friday, we had heard back from less than half of the officeholders, which means they’ll be hearing from us again in January.
The Open Door Law — and its sibling, the Access to Public Records Act — were put in place as guarantors of transparency. The state has an arbiter, the Office of the Public Access Counselor, to rule on challenges to government secrecy or withholding of records. Many people think this apparatus is in place to satisfy the news media, but the fact is that the PAC fields many more inquiries from concerned citizens — and officeholders trying to do the right thing — than reporters.
Most officeholders are conscientious and work hard to be transparent. But transparency comes with complications. Issues become controversial because of public reaction to, say, a zoning petition. Meetings of part-time elected officials — who have family and career obligations, too — lengthen and become uncomfortable as the officials face constituents. One of the biggest changes in the Open Door Law in the past 15 years occurred because of corners that were being cut by members of the Greenfield City Council; votes on a city budget were essentially being lined up in phone calls among council members outside of their public meetings. The loophole on such “serial meetings” was closed thanks to the efforts of then-Sen. Beverly Gard of Greenfield, who was a champion of transparency during her long legislative career.
The vast majority of officeholders are probably fibbing if they tell you they enjoy parades of taxpayers taking the lectern during public meetings to tell them how to do their jobs. Most prefer to avoid the drama and pile up unanimous votes that show solidarity.
Not long before the November election, a school board candidate was asked about what makes for an ideally run school board. The answer shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it was still a little shocking to hear. It also underscored the importance of our sunshine laws.
An ideally run school board, the candidate said, is one where the board members huddle beforehand to decide how they’ll vote so that public meetings run more smoothly. In other words, in the shadows, out of the bright sunshine of public scrutiny.
David Hill writes occasionally about issues in the Daily Reporter newsroom. You can write to him about this or any other story at [email protected]
