Opinion from Zanesville Times Recorder:
Welcome to Sunshine Week — a time created to draw public attention to the issue of freedom of information. The first Sunshine Sunday was declared in Florida in 2002, when newspapers across that state agreed to publish editorials and articles on government openness on the same day. It was the Sunday before James Madison’s birthday.
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Opinion from The Columbus Dispatch:
It’s time for the Ohio General Assembly to kill the stealth exemption.
The stealth exemption is a nickname for a series of misguided rulings by the Ohio Supreme Court in interpreting Ohio’s open-records law, our most potent catalyst for accountable government.
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From The Columbus Dispatch:
Today marks the beginning of Sunshine Week, a national initiative to promote government transparency and citizen access to public records and meetings.
Unfortunately, the forecast for openness in Ohio is growing cloudier.
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Editorial from Dennis Hetzel, executive director of the Ohio Newspaper Association:
Every year, Sunshine Week underscores the importance of open government across the nation. It is a perfect moment to share concerns in Ohio about ever-growing exceptions to an open records law that should ensure you have access to information about what your government officials do and how well they do it.
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Read More… from Shadows lengthen on access to public records
From HuntingtonNews.net:
A two-day radiation dose reconstruction board meeting held in Cincinnati, Ohio may have included revisions to the site profile of the Huntington Pilot Plant, according to Terrie Barrie, founding member Alliance of Nuclear Workers Advocacy Groups.
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HNN has filed a FOIA request for the data.
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Read More… from Possible Huntington Pilot Plant site profile revision; FOIA filed
A few state FOIA and local open government news items selected from many of interest that we might or might not have drawn attention to earlier in the week:
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Read More… from NFOIC’s State FOIA Friday for November 9, 2012
From toledoBlade.com:
WAUSEON — Sunshine Review, a national nonprofit group that aims to encourage state and local government transparency, has given Fulton County an A+.
The county previously scored a ‘C’ in that area and even was found to have violated Ohio’s Sunshine Law, written to ensure citizens know when officials plan to hold meetings and make decisions.
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Read More… from Fulton County commended for data availability
From Cleveland.com:
The Federal Trade Commission knows what its undercover investigators found in sweeps of Cleveland-area funeral homes conducted last year. But you, as a member of the public, aren’t allowed to know – even though the Funeral Rule was created to protect you.
The agency recently denied a Freedom of Information Act appeal for more information about the sweeps and the violations.
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Read More… from FTC keeps funeral rule lapses buried: plain dealing
From The Columbus Dispatch:
You know things must be getting interesting when the Columbus Board of Education holds an entire three-hour board meeting without saying a single meaningful word in public.
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Read More… from Columbus Board of Education into super-secret mode
From Cleveland.com:
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Citizens having problems getting public records from government agencies can now turn to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office for a new forum to resolve the dispute.
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