Reporters, editors, lawyers, the governor and noteworthy political candidates and assorted friends of open government met in Tampa last weekend to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the First Amendment Foundation.
The Tallahassee-based foundation is a watchdog for the public’s right to know. It was born in 1985, but most of those at the evening dinner were serving as watchdogs long before that.
Gov. Charlie Crist was there. He didn’t speak during the program but he worked the crowd. As governors go he’s been a welcome ally for the First Amendment Foundation and the newspapers that support it.
Both the Republican and Democratic candidates for attorney general were there, but neither Pam Bondi nor Dan Gelber spoke. It wasn’t a time for political speeches. It was a time to celebrate sunshine in government and Florida arguably has more than any other state in the union.
The significance of that played out this past Tuesday, when the First Amendment Foundation paid a visit to the Naples Daily News.
Barbara Petersen, the foundation president, conducted a Sunshine Seminar in the Gates Community Room at the Daily News. Petersen claims to have spoken to citizens in every town in the state that has at least one traffic light and few that make do with just a stop sign or two.
Her seminars cover open meeting and public records laws. When she’s not on the road — and even when she is — her office fields hundreds of calls a week seeking guidance.
She says 55 percent to 60 percent of the calls to the First Amendment Foundation hotline come from citizens. The rest of the calls are evenly split between journalists and government officials. They all want to know what’s right and what’s wrong when it comes to government records and government meetings.
All of the above were represented in the audience at Tuesday’s seminar.
There were three women from Sarasota who all had children in the Sarasota County school system. They had lots of questions about their School Board, ranging from whether a classroom test is a public record to whether the board has to let people speak at a meeting.
There were elected fire district and mosquito control district board members. They were joined by their top administrators.
There were employees of the state Environmental Protection Agency.
There were Daily News editors and reporters as well as a reporter from the weekly newspaper at Fort Myers Beach.
The 50 who attended received the 2010 edition of the Government-in-the-Sunshine Manual along with a list of important phone numbers to call if they ever have a question about what’s public and what’s not. Here’s three to jot down and keep:
n First Amendment Foundation — (800) 337-3518.
n Office of Open Government (a special office established by Gov. Crist) — (850) 921-6099.
n Open Government Mediation Program — (850) 2245-0157.
Trips such as the one Petersen made to Naples are typically scheduled in the summer and fall. That’s because the winter and spring are more than busy.
That’s when the Florida Legislature is at work. State representatives and senators start filing bills in early winter and then gather in Tallahassee each February for the annual session, which typically runs through April.
Every year there are new laws being pushed that would make state government a little less open. Petersen said her office tracks between 130 and 160 bills each session and reports their progress — passage or eventual death — to newspapers and other First Amendment Foundation supporters.
In 25 years, the foundation has been responsible for lots of sunshine.
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Southwest Florida home sales: May 22…
Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group
Comments » 1
conchsoup writes:
Two elephants in the sunshine room deserve to be watched closely.
When 'news' organizations become political propagandists without specifying that they are ("News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, contributed $1 million this summer to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the business lobby that has been running an aggressive campaign in support of the Republican effort to retake Congress...
It was the second $1 million contribution the company has made this election cycle to a GOP-aligned group. In late June it gave that amount to the Republican Governors Association." http://www.politico.com/news/stories/... )
And when "Big money rains down on the “bottom up” Tea Party insurgency through phantom front organizations (Americans for Prosperity, Americans for Job Security) that exploit legal loopholes to keep their sugar daddies’ names secret. Reporters at The Times and The Washington Post, among others, have lately made real strides in explaining how the game works. But we still don’t know the identities of most of those anonymous donors. NYT) the American people have a fundamental right to know who is funding the election campaigns. What if foreign countries or corporations with little regard for the lives and conditions of American workers and families are behnd the scenes manipulating the outcomes of our treasured democracy?
Where's the sunshine Phil? You are Naples main advocate for government in the sunshine...get some gumption and expose these attacks on our venerable system of governing ourselves.
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