Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of sunshine law violations…
A while ago, I wrote about a board that was smart enough to know that something they were doing was illegal. We’re not talking about a local ambulance district or water district here — we’re talking about a board that functions on one of the highest levels in the state. A board that should have big time lawyers telling it what to do.
Last week, I got a call from another paper in that area. The same board is again breaking the sunshine law. And the problem seems to be spreading because I was told that three separate boards in this area of the state are doing the same thing — something clearly illegal. You’d wonder if they are getting advice from the same lawyer?
The issue is simple. When a board meets to talk about the qualifications it seeks in a candidate for its highest position, whether it is the head of a university, the director of a 911 district, or the superintendent of a school board, those discussions MUST be held in an open meeting. There is NO exception in Section 610.021 that allows such a discussion to be held in a closed meeting. No discussion of individual candidates’ qualifications was going on in these meetings.
Don’t these people even read the sunshine law? The law is pretty simple and pretty clear. To hold a closed meeting, you must be talking about something that is detailed in Section 610.021. And no exception in that section fits this description. Either these folks can’t read, or just are too lazy to read. The language in the law isn’t that difficult to understand.
And when I hear a story about three separate public governmental bodies in the same area blatantly flouting the law in such a manner, it angers me. Don’t these people even bother to try to follow the law? The sunshine law books published by the Attorney General’s office are free. Training is available to anyone who wants it from a variety of sources. State organizations provide it for the school boards, county and city office holders. The attorney general’s office speaks on a regular basis. Press groups host gatherings around the state.
Anyone who doesn’t bother to understand the law is just plain lazy. Maybe we need to add a standard to Section 610.027 for lazy folks. What other law can you break and then claim it’s because you didn’t bother to understand what the law said?
Randy Turner, who writes a blog from southwest Missouri, had some pointed comments to make last week about the sunshine law in connection with his analysis about the ethics commission situation. Randy concludes that we need a sunshine law with teeth. How true! It’s been a embarrassment to have this argument going on in our state in the law few weeks about whether and when e-mails are public records. And the solution is not for state officials to “use their own computers” to avoid conflicts, as Chris Koster suggested recently. With folks sending and receiving emails from their Blackberries, their home and office computers and their laptops, it gets harder and harder to keep track of whether copies of e-mails that are business related are properly stored. But this is a critical issue for members of public bodies and it is going to need to be addressed sooner rather than later.
Time again for some changes in chapter 610 come next legislative session. And it’s clear that any politician worth his or her salt is going to be in agreement on this point.