New state rules could eclipse government transparency
Last March, the Eagle addressed a proposal here on our Opinions pages which would have impacted your right to know what Lee County’s various governmental councils, commissions and boards are up to on our behalf.
The issue is a perennial weed cropping up again at the state level — a move to transfer public notices from “third party publication,” essentially newspapers, to a delineated but not yet existing, fee-based government website.
Those among the State Legislature supporting the 2021 proposal weren’t promising any savings to government entities, businesses and private parties who must, by law, provide notice before they can take certain actions.
No, the plan was to create (with tax dollars) a whole new website to be established by the Florida Supreme Court with overflow from the fees to be paid (also with your tax dollars and cash out of your wallet) for an unrelated — and new — state program.
There was much opposition to the proposal from not only newspapers and freedom of information organizations, but from businesses which follow legal advertising and count on easy access to notices of everything from meetings, zoning changes, requests for bids and regulatory ordinances to, like us, budget proposals, tax hikes, government “fees” and assessment bumps. The measure would have made these notices harder to find.
A compromise was reached through the efforts of the Florida Press Association and other groups.
A privately funded statewide website for all legal notices was created, keeping the print component while lifting requirements that had limited legal advertising to mostly larger and paid publications.
After 10 months of effort and millions of dollars, Floridapublicnotices.com, the new centralized repository for all public notices run by the Florida Press Association, was operational. It provides an easily searchable, one-stop source for public notices statewide.
It was heralded nationwide with numerous states looking to consider a similar system.
A scant 68 days after the site was up, running and being used, the State Legislature fast-tracked a committee bill that will tank it.
HB 7049 allows government agencies “the option” to instead use their county’s “official website,” or other private website designated by the county, to publish legal notices. Print publication would no longer be required meaning the companion component, that new centralized site for all notices, may be gone as well.
Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, summed this up succinctly when the bill was still in committee in the Florida Senate.
“If I wanted to hide something from the public that’s required to be noticed, this is exactly the process I would use. I would throw it on one of the 67 different websites,” he said.
As of press time, Gov. Ron DeSantis had not signed HB 7049.
We urge him to veto it. Not only is it bad legislation, it’s not even well-developed bad legislation.
It has large accountability gaps in just how proof of publication — now stringently required for all notices required by law — is to be guaranteed nor is there a provision for third party — ie. independent — oversight.
Florida’s Sunshine statutes date back to 1967.
The ability to obtain records and attend meetings at which the public’s business is discussed was once sacrosanct.
But through the years there have been efforts, too many of them successful, to control the message and keep the public in the dark.
Exemptions and exceptions to public record and meeting laws and legislation that shuts the public out continue erode protections long codified into law and imbedded in our state’s very Constitution.
As Sunshine Week — a week dedicated to greater transparency, the importance of open government and freedom of information — comes to a close this year, let us say it’s becoming progressively shady out there.
Government transparency eclipsed seldom slips back into full light.
Preserve Florida’s Sunshine by demanding our officials stop their encroachment.
-Eagle editorial