Open meetings and open records a
must for good government
By Gordon Garnos
AT ISSUE: It
has been said that South Dakota has some of the worst laws in the
nation when it comes to open meetings and open records of
government. While this may be true, at least Attorney General Larry
Long is attempting to improve both of them. We give him a lot of
credit in his attempts, but until the South Dakota Legislature is
willing, our state may remain as one of the worst states in the
nation for not having adequate open meeting and open records laws.
CONTRARY TO THE
thinking of a number of legislators, South Dakota is lacking in good
open meeting and open records laws. True, there have been several
attempts to improve these laws to make governments in South Dakota
more transparent, our state still has a long way to go to have at
least similar laws compared to the states around us.
When I say
transparent governments, I mean government on every level, from
township boards to state government, itself. Needless to say, that
includes cities, counties and school boards.
I am particularly
hung up on open meetings for a couple of reasons. First, being in
the newspaper business for as long as I was, I saw first hand the
importance of open meetings in government. Secondly, as a member of
the Watertown City Council, I got hornswoggled recently into
thinking a "special unannounced committee meeting" wasn't a secret
meeting. And I should have known better. Ref: my first reason.
NOW WE LEARN
that Governor Rounds is either getting interested or his interest in
governments' open records is increasing. A newspaper in that town
near Harrisburg recently announced that the governor "thinks changes
are needed in the way government records are handled and he will be
involved in efforts to improve things."
Good going, Governor!
A spokesman said, "He'll continue to work with the attorney
general's office and legislative leadership to come up with the best
possible solution. In my book anything less than what is recommended
by the statewide Government Openness Task Force will not be the best
possible solution.
The Government
Openness Task Force is a group Attorney General Long organized in
2002 to help him change South Dakota's gag law and open meetings
conflicts. Both of which were real thorns in the side of the media,
and thus, the general public I might add.
SOUTH DAKOTA'S
gag law was bad law. There is no other way to say it. It was passed
in 1996 by the Legislature. It barred state employees from revealing
information concerning any state investigation or even confirming
the existence of any state investigation. It took the Legislature
until 2004 to revise this law. The change applies only to
investigations that include "trade secrets and proprietary
information." This means information on pricing, costs, revenue,
taxes, market share, customers and personnel held by private
entities and used for that private entity's business purposes. There
are exceptions to this law and while it is better today than when
the original law was passed, it still needs a lot of work.
In the cases of both
better open meeting laws and open records laws, it couldn't have
been said better than how Tena Haraldson, bureau chief for The
Associated Press for the Dakotas and Nebraska, put it. "It is an
inherent right to know what¹s going on (in government)."
AS THE GOVERNOR
and others work to improve the laws for more open government and
more open records, I am reminded of a recent call from a woman in
Sisseton asking what constitutes an open meeting for her county
commission. In a nut shell, a meeting of a government body must be
open to the public as long as a legal quorum is present.
The big bugaboo
there, as I understood it, was what happened in an executive session
of the commission. Executive or closed meetings may be held for the
sole purpose of:
1. "Discussing the
qualifications, competence, performance, character of fitness of any
public officer or employee or prospective public officer or
employee. The term 'employee' does not include any independent
contractors. 2. Discussing the expulsion, suspension, discipline,
assignment of or the educational program of a student. 3. Consulting
with legal counsel or reviewing communications from legal counsel
about proposed or pending litigation or contractual matters. 4.
Preparing for contract negotiations or negotiating with employees or
employee representatives. 5. Discussing marketing or pricing
strategies by a board or commission of a business owned by the state
or any of its political subdivisions, where public discussions would
be harmful to the competitive position of the business."
We must emphasize,
however, those meetings are just for discussion. No vote may take
place. If a public body breaks this law, its members could be
charged with a misdemeanor. As I said, good government is
transparent government. The public needs to see through that
window....
Gordon Garnos was long-time editor of the Watertown Public Opinion and
recently retired after 39 years with that newspaper. Garnos, a
lifelong resident of South Dakota except for his military service in the
U.S. Air Force, was born and raised in Presho.
