Posted on: Sunday, March 23, 2003

EDITORIAL
Vision teams should follow Sunshine Law

Should every informal neighborhood group concerned about city matters be required to follow the rather strict requirements of the state open-meetings law?

Of course not. The open-meetings law was designed to ensure the public's business is done where the public can watch it. To extend that rule to every chance gathering of citizens makes no sense.

So, at first glance it might seem reasonable that the volunteer "Vision Teams" set up by Mayor Jeremy Harris to brainstorm ideas for their communities should be exempt from the law.

But the state Office of Information Practices (OIP) says otherwise. And on balance, the ruling makes good sense.

City Corporation Counsel David Arakawa called the OIP opinion ridiculous, since some of the requirements of the law are impossible to meet with these ad hoc, volunteer groups. That shouldn't stop them from doing their best to meet the spirit of the law.

The plain fact is that, volunteer or not, these vision teams are making substantive decisions that guide the spending of millions in public tax dollars.

Most vision teams would undoubtedly welcome public participation in their discussions that lead to community beautification efforts, road improvements and the like. So requiring adherence to the open-meeting law shouldn't present a problem.

But by posting notice of meeting agendas, and keeping meeting minutes as required by the Sunshine Law, we can help guarantee that these teams are working in the public's interest first.