Gone are the dark clouds that had us blind. It’s gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day.

It’s early March and that means Sunshine Week is fast approaching.  The Missouri Sunshine Coalition is planning its annual meeting in Columbia, but what’s really exciting is that it will take place in conjunction with the Open Missouri launch.  You can read all about it here.  It’s a day of free training for use in the Sunshine Law.  Public bodies in the Columbia area can get a lot of incredible information — actual hands-on explanations about the requirements of the law — for free.

And that might be a good idea for a few sheriffs in the state.  The coalition’s recent audit of responses to a request for arrest records demonstrated that some sheriff’s departments don’t even bother to respond to a request from someone outside the community.  A few went the extra mile — copies of records that fell within the category sought were supplied without charge.  Some, properly, responded advising that the records were available and detailing the cost to obtain those records.

A spokesman for a state association of sheriffs called the project, basically, a “waste of time.”  Considering that law enforcement could have responded to the request with a short email, that kind of response just demonstrates the attitude of some law enforcement officials to the open government issue.  They want more tax dollars for their budget, but they don’t want to respond to requests from the public who want to know about how they are doing their jobs.

Kudos to those who properly responded.  May a rain cloud sit over the heads of the complainers permanently.