\r\n\r\n\r\n
<\/a>\r\nHouse Bill 397, which took effect upon Deal’s signature, is the\r\nfirst major rewrite of Georgia’s sunshine laws in more than a\r\ndecade. New provisions in the open records and meetings laws\r\nincrease fines for offenders. The maximum penalty of $500 is now\r\n$1,000, and offenders who commit repeat violations within a year\r\nface fines of up to $2,500.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nPreviously, the sunshine laws allowed only criminal complaints to be\r\nfiled against suspected violators, meaning a prosecutor would have\r\nto prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. The rewrite now allows\r\nthe filing of civil complaints, which have a lower burden of proof.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nThat could be interesting if anyone actually files a complaint.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nThe rewrite also would provide new exemptions for some gatherings of\r\ngoverning bodies, such as allowing a quorum of members to attend the\r\nsame civic function, receive training or visit government agencies\r\n— provided no official business is discussed or transpires.\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\nSo \r\nthe various elected boards meeting together at the end of last month<\/a>\r\nwas probably OK, since they weren’t making decisions, merely\r\neducating each other.\r\nBut\r\n\r\nthe Lowndes County Commission repeatedly hiding from the public<\/a>\r\nwhile discussing solid waste disposal, among other issues,\r\ndoes not seem to fit that exception.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\n\r\nIt also reduces the cost of most documents disclosed under the Open\r\nRecords Act from 25 cents to 10 cents per page.\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nThat means the price of\r\n\r\nthe Industrial Authority’s old minutes just went down,<\/a>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
<\/a>\r\npresumably from $125.09 to $50.04.\r\nOf course, it’s been yet another year since Allan Ricketts\r\nsupplied Bobbi Anne Hancock with a “notification that cost incurred”\r\nwould be $125.09 for 2006 to 2011.\r\nSo presumably add another $10 or so.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nIn another ten days it will be a year since VLCIA Chairman Roy Copeland\r\ntold me he was in favor of putting the minutes online.<\/a>\r\n\r\n
<\/a>\r\nIn another couple of months he won’t even be on the VLCIA board anymore.\r\nStill VLCIA has no minutes online.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nThe new law adds an economic development exception:\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nUnder the new law, state incentives being offered to projects that\r\ncost more than $25 million or hire more than 50 employees will\r\nremain secret until a company commits to the development or abandons\r\nnegotiations. When a company commits to a project, the Georgia\r\nDepartment of Economic Development will now publish the incentives\r\non its website. If the project is abandoned, the incentive package\r\ncan be obtained under the Open Records Act, upon request.\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\nThat exception doesn’t seem to have much to do with most of what VLCIA discusses,\r\nso it doesn’t give them any new excuses not to post minutes.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nHB 397 is a good start; a cloudy sunrise.\r\n\r\nMore can be done.<\/a>\r\nHow about requiring any tax-funded or publicly-appointed agency to post\r\nagendas and minutes on its website, and to have a website for that purpose?\r\nHow about require including relevant items from board packets with\r\nthe agendas?\r\nIf\r\n\r\nboth school boards can do it<\/a>,\r\nthe Industrial Authority and all the other local appointed\r\nand elected boards can do it.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nThe legislature could turn this cloudy sunrise into a sunny day for Georgia.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\n-jsq\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s a cloudy sunrise for open government in Georgia with HB 387 now law. Will anyone enforce it? Will local governments comply? Will the legislature extend this law into a sunshiny day in Georgia? Aaron Gould Sheinin and Bill Rankin wrote for the AJC yesterday, Governor signs Open Records rewrite into law, House Bill 397, […]","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":[97,14,8,2,88,3,178],"tags":[8736,8701,8699,8702,12,7,8734,8700,6,8749],"class_list":["post-908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-economy","category-georgia","category-government","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-transparency","category-vlcia","tag-activism","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-lowndes-county-commission","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta","tag-vlcia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-eE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908","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=908"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9567,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908\/revisions\/9567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}