'This Is Not A Drill!!!!'

March 12 and the week that follows are "Sunshine Sunday" and "Sunshine Week." It’s a time when groups like the National Newspaper Association, Radio and Television News Directors, and the League of Women Voters engage the public in a discussion about the value of open government and problems associated with secrecy.

Affiliates in many states will use innovative campaigns, including news stories and editorials, to educate readers, viewers, listeners and citizens on the issue. In Tennessee, we won’t have to invent a campaign. We have a REAL project already on the board.

TPA, TAB and TCOG are working to get legislative approval of the "Sunshine in Government Improvement Act of 2006." SB2471/HB2495 proposes to bring clarity and to improve enforcement of the open meetings law. The legislation has been endorsed by the League of Women Voters of Tennessee.

We need your help in building public support for this initiative. "Sunshine Sunday/Sunshine Week" and our proposed reform of the ‘sunshine law" provide an opportunity to educate the public.

The first Sunshine Sunday helped Florida gain a major reform of its open government laws by referendum in 2002. It also helped stop more than 150 exemptions that were proposed that year in the wake of 9/11. Our 32-year-old open meetings law was modeled after Florida’s. In the wake of Operation Tennessee Waltz and with plenty of evidence showing weaknesses in our law, we need to follow Florida’s lead again.

Here are some ways to help:

Ask your readers, viewers, listeners to answer a simple question: "What does open government mean to you?" Ask them to write Letters to the Editor or to appear on air. Print or air their responses and share them with TPA, TAB, TCOG or your lawmakers.

Write editorials or do person-on-the-street interviews for news stories. When you publish editorials, urge voters, taxpayers and concerned citizens to contact their representatives in the General Assembly about supporting the "Sunshine in Government Improvement Act." If you do news reports, tell your audience how to contact local representatives. Retrieve and reuse letters that ran during the ethics reform debate.

Some county official associations are mounting a coordinated offensive to kill the legislation as "going too far," as the "guilty until proven innocent" bill and as a general nuisance for public officials. The 115 open meetings complaints and violations reported in a recent TCOG survey are "isolated" incidents, one group of officials says. Another say they represent less than one third of 1% of all local government meetings. They say a tougher "sunshine law" – with penalties spelled out and procedures for closing meetings clearly defined – "will discourage good candidates from seeking public office."

Holes in Tennessee’s open meetings law is not just a problem for the press. The TCOG survey found 40 of the 115 sunshine law problems reported between 2003-2005 came from public officials, legal counsel to public bodies and citizens. They, not reporters and editors, complained about being shut out of the decision-making process.

For more information about the legislation, the TCOG survey, and other resources, go to these web sites: www.tnpress.com  and www.tcog.info.

For more information on "Sunshine Sunday/Week" or to get a sunshine logo to use with your stories and editorials, go to www.sunshineweek.org.