06/01/11: Ensuring the government sees sunshine

This op-ed appeared in The Virginian-Pilot on the date shown.

STEVE and Patricia Orr are business owners who think they may have been treated unfairly by the city of Suffolk when they were required to remove flags from their business and purchase a permit to display a banner. Under Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act, they have requested copies of all permit applications for the past 30 days. As reported in an article Monday on the banner dispute, this newspaper has submitted a similar request.

Hardly a day goes by without a mention of someone making a FOIA request of our government. The federal statute was signed into law on July 4, 1966. Virginia originally enacted its statute in 1968.

Known as sunshine laws, these provisions recognize that government business is the people’s business. Citizens have the right to attend public meetings and to inspect and copy public records. While there are exceptions, government has the responsibility to operate in the open. Each of the city websites in Hampton Roads contains information on how citizens can submit a FOIA request.

A state statute provided for the creation of the Freedom of Information Advisory Council in 2000. The council is authorized to issue advisory opinions of the applicability of FOIA. Its website, http://foiacouncil.dls. virginia.gov, contains links to opinions issued since its start.

The council is a state agency and found itself targeted for elimination by Gov. Bob Mc-Donnell’s Commission on Government Reform and Restructuring. One of the reasons cited by the commission was that the state attorney general’s office could take over the issuance of these opinions.

A major flaw in that argument is that you and I, as individuals, cannot ask the attorney general for an opinion. Neither can the many information officers who process such requests. By statute, only certain people — among them the governor, members of the General Assembly, judges, constitutional officers and city attorneys — can make those requests.

Fortunately for us, an alarm went out from the Virginia Coalition for Open Government (www.opengovva.org) and efforts to eliminate the council were quickly dismissed. VCOG, founded in 1996, is an excellent resource on the operation of FOIA.

The website contains plain-language explanations of the current law. The nonprofit organization’s members include much of the press throughout the commonwealth, including this newspaper, as well as individuals. About 20 of Virginia’s elected officials are members, with the lone member from Hampton Roads being Norfolk City Council member Tommy Smigiel.

In addition to operating its website, the VCOG hosts workshops for citizens and government employees, the most recent one in Roanoke in April. The organization is available for presentations to just about any group.

Regarding the maintenance of good credit, Thomas Jefferson once told President George Washington “all that was ever necessary to establish our credit was an efficient government and an honest one.”

Credit is not just money, though, and the credit our government establishes with its citizens is one based on trust. Ronald Reagan was famous for saying, “Trust, but verify.”

The Orrs, using FOIA, are doing just that.