Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Befuddle By Choice

A recent Orlando Sentinel article pointed out an obvious problem local governments have with operating in the sunshine. They don't believe in, or practice it.

Many years ago, in a effort to make government more transparent to citizens, the state of Florida enacted laws that governed open meetings, communications, and documents that commissioners and staff use to base their decisions on. Basically these laws state that any of this information is open to the public.

Well, at least in theory of law it is open to the public.Recent undercover operations told a truth that many of us in the anonymous community have known for a long time. Open public records only applies to what government wants you to see. Everything else stays hidden no matter how many times it is requested. Osceola County Governments have had a bad history of making sure public documents are actually made public. The real question that should be asked is if government officials are honestly this incompetent, or is there a pattern of knowingly breaking the law. Osceola County has run into several issues because of attempts to block documents from the prying publics eyes, but maybe as the newspaper suggests, these attempts at hiding the truth are because of simply stupidity and nothing else.

After watching commission meetings for this many years, the WayneWho staff can give no guidance on this topic. Stupidity is in the eye of the beholder.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

AOTERO@KISSIMMEE.ORG BUT SINCE THE ARTICLE IS ABOUT SUNSHINE, JUST SEND IT TO MDURBIN@KISSIMMEE.ORG AND REQUEST HE FORWARD IT. HELL, HE SEES IT ANYWAY.

Anonymous said...

The one thing Otero and Irizarry agree about, is separate offices to follow sunshine law. Maybe, finally, it will get done.

GRAFFIX said...

HERE IS HOPING YOU AND ALL YOUR READERS HAD A NICE THANKSGIVING AND REMEMBERED OUR TROOPS IN YOUR PRAYERS.

Anonymous said...

This is kind of a non issue. All they need to do is to get some masking tape and watch an old WKRP rerun and make a Les Nessman style office.