Sunshine Week: This is time set aside to remember open records laws

This is Sunshine Week, but it isn't about the weather.

The designation refers to the nation's open records laws and whether your government officials are following them or not.

We have to say that in our experience, few of them do to the full extent of the law, and many of them don't even understand how important they are. There's just something about being put in a position of power that makes people want to conduct the public's business in private. We have seen it happen over and over. A candidate for public office vows on the campaign trail to be completely "transparent" if elected. But once they get in office they take every opportunity to do business behind closed doors.

State law allows certain types of public business to be conducted privately, but for the most part issues are to be taken up in the open. Government officials need to be reminded of this over and over. Government in secret is exactly what our forefathers feared most and it is up to today's news media -- and private citizens -- to hold up our local, state and federal government to the light. As taxpayers we have a right to know what our government is doing.

Published in Editorials on March 13, 2017 9:47 AM