{"id":1612,"date":"2011-08-22T14:07:45","date_gmt":"2011-08-22T18:07:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/georgia-hearing-on-open-meetings-law.html"},"modified":"2011-08-22T14:07:45","modified_gmt":"2011-08-22T18:07:45","slug":"georgia-hearing-on-open-meetings-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/georgia-hearing-on-open-meetings-law.html","title":{"rendered":"Georgia hearing on open meetings law"},"content":{"rendered":"GA Attorney General Sam Olens is trying to change Georgia’s\n\nopen meetings law<\/a> and there will be a hearing on it next week (30 August 2011).\n

\nWalter C. Jones wrote for jacksonville.com 5 August 2011,\n\nSunshine law changes to come up in Georgia redistricting session\nPublic records statute is part of redistricting session, says state AG.<\/a>\n

\nOlens unveiled news of the hearing by the House Judiciary Committee\nwhile he was participating in a panel discussion hosted by the Atlanta\nPress Club.\n

\nMembers of the club offered him suggestions on how to broaden the law\nto help them get documents from government agencies.\n

\nOne reporter even suggested extending the open-records requirements\nto the governor. Current law exempts the governor’s office, but recent\noccupants have chosen to voluntarily comply in most cases.\n

\nOlens said he had to be realistic.\n

\n“The problem is I need a majority in the House and a majority in the\nSenate, and I need to get the bill passed,” he said. “Everyone should\nbe subject to the Open Records Act … but you have to make a decision\nif you want to improve the law or you just want to whine.”\n<\/blockquote>\nGood point.\n

\nAP reported more detail back on 1 March 2011,\n\nGeorgia may change open meetings law:\nNew attorney general offers many changes, tougher penalties<\/a>\n\n\n

\nATLANTA – Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens on Monday announced a\nsweeping rewrite of Georgia’s sunshine laws that would sharply increase\nthe fines of meetings and records violations and require advance payment\nfor costly requests.\n

\nThe changes would require officials who close meetings to keep notes\nthat a judge could review in case of a legal challenge. And the measure\nwould increase the fines for violations of the sunshine laws to $1,000,\nup from a $100 fine for violations of the Open Records Act and a $500\nfine for flouting the Open Meetings Law.\n

\nIt also includes revisions sure to upset First Amendment advocates. Aside\nfrom asking for advance payments on records that cost more than $500 to\nprepare, it also calls for new exemptions to the open records law. They\ninclude documents about security training and any record that would\n“jeopardize the receipt of federal funds.”\n<\/blockquote>\nAdvance payments are a bad idea, given that agencies can get the payment\nand then dither forever on delivering the goods.\nStiffer fines sound like a good idea, but when has GA ever actually\nlevied the existing fines?\n

\nI’d give Olens a B for effort, but a C for content.\n

\nBack to\n\nthe more recent article:<\/a>\n

\nThe hearing, scheduled for Aug. 30, will allow members of the Judiciary\nCommittee to hear witnesses for and against Olens’ proposal and to suggest\nchanges. It’s likely that some local officials will object to the higher\npenalties and stricter provisions about how quickly to produce files\nfor members of the public who request them.\n

\nCynthia Counts, an attorney who specializes in free-speech cases, said\npublic pressure to pass tougher provisions should be strong enough to\novercome opposition.\n

\nThe recent allegations that the Atlanta Public School System altered\nand destroyed documents or simply refused to turn them over to reporters\nasking about cheating on standardized tests have demonstrated how far some\nofficials will go to flaunt the current law. There is no more egregious\nexample,” she said. “I urge all of you to contact your legislator.”\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<\/a>\nMaybe folks around here should contact their state legislators about\n\nopen records<\/a> from\n\nstate prisons<\/a>\nand from the\nsheriff’s office.<\/a>\nMaybe even about\n\nmaking county ordinances available to the public<\/a>,\nsome of the other transparency issues.<\/a>\n

\nI hate to agree with the VDT, but\n\nas they said:<\/a>\n

\n“When officials act like they are hiding something, they usually are.”\n<\/blockquote>\nIf the legislature wants to help fix that, let’s take them up on their offer.\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GA Attorney General Sam Olens is trying to change Georgia’s open meetings law and there will be a hearing on it next week (30 August 2011). Walter C. Jones wrote for jacksonville.com 5 August 2011, Sunshine law changes to come up in Georgia redistricting session Public records statute is part of redistricting session, says state […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[8701,2274,753,7,1683,730,1096,8700,6],"class_list":["post-1612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","tag-georgia","tag-hearing","tag-legislature","tag-lowndes-county","tag-open-meetings","tag-open-records","tag-sam-olens","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-q0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}