Forecast: A sunny week in Florida

Welcome to the most important part of the calendar you’ve never heard of.

Sunshine Week!

More fun than the Citrus County Fair (not true), Sunshine Week draws attention to how well — or not —the government is doing in performing its public work in public.

---

The Florida Society of Newspaper Editors started Sunshine Week in 2002, and it soon went national. This week media from across the country will be spotlighting government-access laws and procedures in the hopes of educating you, the citizenry.

I’m planning a few Sunshine blogs this week because it really is that vital.

In general Florida’s Sunshine Law covers public meetings and records. It lays out procedures when and how elected officials may interact with one another. It spells out exactly what a public record is, and how to obtain one. It details the numerous exemptions — information not available for public disclosure.

The trick is to know which is which and how to play the game. 

So, for your Monday, some Sunshine points:

— One aspect of Sunshine Week is to test the knowledge of government workers on the Sunshine Law. There are some basics: When seeking records, the government can’t force me to identify myself. It can’t ask why I want the record or what I’m going to do with the information.

To that extent — and I’m not proud of this — some years I participated in a statewide sting operation. Newspapers, including the Chronicle, would make bizarre public records requests to see how the agency reacted. They called it an audit, but it always made me feel a little slimy.

It’s true that government workers who deal in public records should have an understanding of how the law works. And it’s frustrating when they don’t. But one office clerk’s incorrect response to a records request shouldn’t paint the entire agency as untrustworthy.

I’m not using Sunshine Week to play gotcha.

— While the state has a decent records law it is vague in two significant areas. In one, it says the agency can charge me a service fee to fulfill my records request if the time it takes to do so is “extensive.” It doesn’t define “extensive,” and it’s important to know that. Usually it’s the 30-minute range. That’s where the real costs are: Paying someone their actual wage to do the research can run into the hundreds or thousands of dollars.

That’s why scattershot records requests are enormously time consuming, and potentially expensive. It’s my longstanding practice to whenever possible have a conversation with the records custodian first before putting in the request. I don’t want government folks working harder than necessary, and I sure don’t want to pay for staff time, so my requests are detailed and succinct.

— You don’t need to make the records request in writing, but logic says that’s the best approach. I never want a misunderstanding.

— If the government denies a record, it has to cite the statutory reason. I cannot overemphasize this rule. The government can’t just say “no.” 

— One last thing on records. The other annoying vagueness of the law is the time the government has to fulfill my request. It says “reasonable,” but doesn’t define what that means.

Only recently have I run into trouble receiving a timely record. When the county notified residents of Inverness Villages 4 that the MSBU study was complete, I immediately requested a copy. The county purposely stonewalled me on that request for over a week so that it could issue the report in its own way and control the message (that approach RARELY works with the public, and it didn’t work here either).

There’s not much I can do about getting stiffed on the timeliness of a record. And, let’s be clear. My experience is all the local agencies are exceptional at the timely release of most records.

— The meeting rule is simple: Public business is discussed in public. Two commissioners can’t have lunch together on Tuesday and map out that afternoon’s board agenda.

While I’ll defend this law till my dying day, I recognize the challenge of commissioners not being able to talk business with one another outside a public meeting. In no other segment of our life would we behave like that. Can you imagine, for example, members of the United Way Board of Directors limited to talking about United Way activities with one another in a formal setting only?

Not just elected boards. All public boards fall under the Sunshine Law. Public business is conducted in public. Period.

It’s Sunshine Week in Florida. Not a cloud in the sky. Enjoy it, friends.

Join the discussion on our Facebook page.

Enjoying the blog? Please consider supporting it at Venmo, PayPal, or Patreon.