Power for the people

Sat, Mar 15, 2008

By ANNA FERGUSON, BRANDEE A. THOMAS,

EMILY STRANGER and CAROLINA MURILLO

The Brunswick News

Bill Bozarth has a cache of nightmare tales he could divulge – horror stories of elected officials, local authorities and city governments abusing their power and hiding secrets from citizens.

"I've got stories that could be legendary," he said.

Bozarth constantly deals with these scenarios as executive director for Common Cause Georgia, a nonprofit organization based in Atlanta that works to hold government and authorities accountable.

Georgia's Sunshine Laws – which require government and authorities to conduct business in the open with few exceptions – top the list of concerns Bozarth most commonly addresses.

Initially enacted in 1972 by then-Gov. Jimmy Carter, Sunshine Laws protect citizens from secrecy in government and official arenas. The laws include the Opens Meetings Act and the Open Records Act and apply to a variety of organizations and governing bodies, including school boards, police departments, hospitals and authorities.

The Sunshine laws do not apply to the governor's office or to the state legislature.Before the acts were established, government leaders and authorities essentially had free rein.

"In some cases, government meetings were really just a club of leaders who got together and did what they wanted," Bozarth said. "The Sunshine Laws did a lot to level that out."

Through Sunshine Laws, citizens have the right to obtain specific information and attend public meetings to better understand their communities. That can be anything from gaining access to police reports to attending school board meetings.

"The underlying principle of these laws is that the government belongs to the citizens and citizens have a right to know what their governments are doing or are not doing," said David Hudson, an attorney with Hull, Towill, Norman, Barrett and Salley law firm in Augusta.

As chief counsel for the Georgia Press Association on legal matters, Hudson has utilized or commented on Sunshine laws more times than he can count. On average, Hudson said he receives 30 to 40 Sunshine Law-related inquiries a month. Of those, about half have to do with non-compliance with the Open Records or Open Meetings laws.

In Georgia, he said, the laws are not perfect, but they are fair and solid.

"Georgia has very effective Open Records and Open Meetings laws," Hudson said. "Georgia is fortunate that its Supreme Court and its Court of Appeals take the view that the open government laws are to be broadly construed and information exempted from public access only when the law makes it precisely clear that the public should be barred."

But although the Sunshine Laws have been around 35 years, there is still plenty of work to be done, especially in the form of enforcement, Bozarth said.

One of the key violations Bozarth responds to are organizations that claim to follow open records requirements but in actuality do not. Instead, they "stonewall" citizens by applying high fees and a pile of requirements, thereby making it nearly impossible to receive information.

In most cases, Bozarth said the agencies are not attempting to be secretive but just don't have the time to deal with open records requests.

All the same, he said, a violation is a violation, despite the reason.

"That is where we need the most improvement, in enforcing the laws," Bozarth said. "We have good Sunshine Law regulations, but how effective can they be if they are not being carried out?"

In Glynn County, elected officials say they do everything they can to uphold the state law.

Most days, governing bodies meet in open session, but there are times when it is necessary for elected officials to go behind closed doors, said Glynn County Commission Chair Don Hogan.

From January 2006 to December 2007, the Glynn County Commission held 44 executive sessions closed to the public, with each ending with some form of action being taken by the group. Actions are taken in open session.

"I'm sure it (arouses public suspicion) when we close the meetings, but there are just some things that we can't discuss in public because of the nature of the item," Hogan said.

"But we can't make any decisions in executive session. We have to do all of our voting out in public."

Georgia's Sunshine Law gives the commissions and other governing authorities a little breathing room in the topics that can be discussed in private. They are limited to discussing personnel, legal and real estate matters in closed sessions – a short list to which Hogan says the commission adheres.

"If a commissioner brings up a subject that isn't supposed to be discussed in private then we squelch that in a hurry," he said. "I'll tell them they can't discuss it.

"I can assure the public that we do not discuss things that are not allowed in closed session. I feel a real obligation to conduct business in the manner that it ought to be conducted."

The county commission's record on open meetings is currently under fire. A citizen's group opposed to expansion of the Glynn County Detention Center downtown is convinced that county commissioners violated the Sunshine Laws by voting on the jail expansion in private. Defend Downtown Brunswick has even filed a lawsuit on that issue, naming each of the seven commissioners as defendants.

The group alleges that the commissioners made the decision to expand the jail in an executive session before voting on the issue in a public meeting on Feb. 7 to make the action official.

Had the commission decided the issue in executive session, it would have been a violation of the Sunshine Laws.

But that didn't happen, says Hogan, calling it a false allegation.

"We never violated Sunshine Laws and never voted on anything in executive session," he said. "Everything we've done has been up front."

Like the county, the Brunswick City Commission also meets in closed sessions occasionally, though it has done so far fewer times than the county.

From January 2006 to December 2007, the city commission held 14 executive sessions, taking action only after two of the meetings.

"We try to use executive sessions sparingly and only when we really need them," said Brunswick Mayor Bryan Thompson.

"Overall, I don't think our executive sessions stir up public suspicion because nobody ever stays until we come out. If people were suspicious it just seems like they would stay until we came back."

Like the county, Thompson says the city commission adheres strictly to the approved topics of discussion in closed sessions.

"(City attorney) Lynn Frey is very particular that we abide by the executive session rules," Thompson said. "If we start to drift, he says we need to stay on topic and we get right back.

"It's not that we're trying to do anything illegal, but it's just very easy to drift off onto a tangent during the course of a discussion."

Executive sessions are more the rule than the exception when members of the Glynn County Board of Education meet. Of the 22 bi-monthly meetings held by the board from March 2007 to March 2008, only one did not end in executive session.

But don't think that means anything.

"We all have a good understanding of what's appropriate to talk in open and closed session," said school board chair Mike Hulsey.

Board attorney Andrew Lakin can vouch for that. One of his roles is to make sure there is no violation of the state's open meeting law.

"There is an affidavit signed by the chairman, who is under oath, that states everything was done according to law," said Lakin.

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