South Carolina officials don’t know open meetings law exists

Three current and one former commissioner of a South Carolina fire district face charges they violated the South Carolina Open Meetings Law by barring a reporter from a meeting. A judge signed their summonses this week. Hometown News reporter Jay King says officials threw him out of a June meeting and ignored his explanation of the Freedom of Information Act. The Holly Springs Fire and Rescue commissioners are set to appear in court in late September.

This is the first time a criminal case has has been brought against South Carolina public officials over the 1974 statute.

Chairman Ryan Phillips acknowledges the board didn’t follow the law but says it didn’t know the law at the time. This actually seems sincere. Other instances of citizens and reporters being kicked out of public meetings make it clear that the guilty parties either didn’t care about the law, or didn’t consider whether the law exists. They simply knew they could use their authority to box-out inconvenient watchdogs and ensure secrecy. However, the officials seem to sincerely not have known.

This may even be a worse offense. But who is to blame?

Perhaps the attorney general. Generally speaking, it is often the attorney general that is the Freedom of Information officer in states.

South Carolina, however, doesn’t need a scapegoat. It needs a solution. Local officials in every state need to be educated as to what their Freedom of Information Acts require of them, both the public records and public meetings portions. This is an easily justifiable use of taxpayer money.

Often we focus on citizen education in order to hold government accountable. But the government has to do its part, too.

Should Illinois be worried about new FOIA proposals?

In January, Illinois passed a law that improved its FOIA, which needed improvements after allegations that secrecy was the rule in Illinois, openness the exception. The most conspicuous case was the University of Illinois not releasing information to the Chicago Tribune, making the Tribune sue the university for the information. Supported by the Attorney General, the law made it so that governments had 5 days to respond to a request and would penalize those that failed to do so.

But the improvements did not come without a fight with some law makers creating a weaker alternative to the new law. That effort has begun again: State Senator John Millner is sponsoring a plan that would significantly weaken the new FOIA in Illinois, according to critics. His proposal would:

-Broaden protections against disclosing personnel and disciplinary information.
-Cut down public access to law enforcement records if the information could hurt another department’s investigation
-Relieve government bodies from having to pay legal fees for successful lawsuits against them.

A proposal introduced by another state senator, Senator William Haine, would exempt law enforcement personnel’s performance evaluations from disclosure, as well. Lawmakers and Gov. Pat Quinn have already approved exempting teacher evaluations from disclosure.

The Illinois attorney general’s office, which was was strongly vocal about its support for the new law, said it’s too soon to change it.

But the new FOIA has critics on the House side, too. State Representative Sidney Mathias is working with the Illinois Municipal League, which opposed last year’s changes to access laws and is a taxpayer-funded lobbying association, to change requirements that may be “too burdensome,” especially requiring government bodies to reply to requests within five business days. He also would consider doing away with a provision that requires local governments to pay attorney fees if someone sues to get information and a court rules that information should be turned over, a similarity to Millner’s proposed changes.

According to Representative Mathias, its in citizens’ interest to place limits on the requirements of government to meet this law. “Who ultimately pays that? It’s the residents. So there’s got to be reasonable limitations on these requests, also.”

Still, it’s one thing to have frivolous spending going on in Illinois, and another thing to have spending that is justifiable. As far as protecting investigation and police officers, this is also an important priority. However, the presumption should be openness, and a denial of information must be justified. While a realistic law that doesn’t overly burden officials is important, the emphasis should be on the citizens and on providing information in a way that is beneficial to them, not on making life easy for public officials.