Keep the spotlight on sunshine

By The Gazette Editorial Board

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The principle is simple: Publicly funded entities should conduct public business in public view. In practice, of course, it's a little more complicated.

Sometimes public bodies have a legitimate need to keep information private - your tax returns, for example. Other times, technological and other changes outpace existing sunshine laws. Occasionally, public officials disregard the law for their own purposes.

Citizens deserve to know what our representatives and public employees are up to at every level of government.

That's why it's critical to draft and enforce strong public records and open meetings laws and exercise our right to access information about the people's business.

As it is with muscles, so it is with rights - you have to exercise them to keep them strong.

This week is Sunshine Week - an annual effort to raise citizens' awareness about open government rights, rules and issues.

It's a time to take stock of how well our public institutions uphold standards of openness, and to examine those laws themselves to be sure they keep up as technologies evolve and issues emerge.

And even as state legislators consider changing the way open meetings and public records laws are enforced, several other sunshine-related issues have caught our attention in recent weeks:

Some public officials are exploiting a gap in Iowa's public records laws regarding e-mail communication, deleting sensitive e-mail conversations about public business in order to avoid public scrutiny, because although e-mail communication is considered a matter of public record under Iowa law, there are no legal standards governing which, whether and how long e-mails are retained.

But when public communication is exchanged over e-mail, the public should have access to that correspondence, just as they do letters, memos and other documents.

Another area where the presumption of openness has taken a back seat to other concerns is in cases of employee misconduct.

Iowa law does not require public institutions to reveal details about disciplinary actions taken against employees. It's a matter of protecting employee privacy, some say.

But keeping disciplinary records confidential also prevents the public from confirming that institutions have taken appropriate action against employees who do wrong.

As a recent Gazette investigation shows, other states maintain that the public's interest in such disciplinary action takes precedence over the employees presumption of privacy. We agree.

And so this Sunshine Week, it's clear there are some weak spots in Iowa's openness laws.

It's time for legislators to make it easier for Iowans to monitor public business and hold public entities accountable.

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