Make government accessible

What started as a bill to make Utah's Open and Public MeetingsAct a bit more friendly to the public has taken a turn for theworse. As of Friday afternoon, HB166 would allow public officials tohold onto the minutes of a meeting as a "protected draft" until thebody meets again.

Recordings of a meeting, if made, would be available "within areasonable time."

Unfortunately, Utah has a shameful record when it comes toprotecting the public's right to scrutinize its local governments.When lawmakers begin debating the topic, some of them operate underthe automatic assumption that it is more important to protect thereputations of elected leaders than to let people know what reallyis happening.

A survey conducted last year by The Associated Press bore thisout. The survey looked at open-government laws in all 50 states.Only two, Utah and Massachusetts, had absolutely no penalties intheir laws for violators. Close a meeting illegally or withholdpublic records in Utah and the worst that can happen is you wouldface some bad publicity. Compare that to Florida, where a countycommissioner in 2004 served 49 days in jail for violating the openmeetings law. As a University of Florida professor who headed thesurvey told the AP, "A couple of prosecutions every once in a whilewakes people up ..."

This isn't just an issue that concerns cranky journalists whowant to read minutes before their deadlines. Local governments dealwith a number of controversial issues that directly affect thepublic. In recent years, school districts have realigned boundariesand cities have changed zoning designations in ways that costlandowners money. The public deserves to know, as soon as possible,not only what the decisions were, but why they were made. Peopleneed to know who said what.

Elected officials may argue that public bodies often make changesto the official minutes before they are officially approved. But inthis digital age, where anyone attending a meeting could record itlegally and put the recording on the Internet, those concerns soundslow-footed, at best.

The changes to HB166 are almost as bad as SB71, which would allowofficials to meet in secret to divvy up Jordan School District'sproperty in the event the district's east side is allowed to splitinto a separate district.

Openness and quick access keeps public officials honest. It alsokeeps the honest ones above suspicion. We'd like to begin seeingbills that reflect that philosophy.