A week of Sunshine is not enough

Almost every Monday is filled with meetings. Today, award-winning town crier Darryl Morgan will kick off the city of Cape Girardeau's meeting by heralding the 200th anniversary of the city's incorporation.

Then the council will take a look at the planning and zoning board's recommendation to deny requests by Edward Leoni and Abbie Crites-Leoni, Thomas J. and Kelley Pujol and Elizabeth Wilhelm to rezone property north of Bertling Street from single-family residential to multifamily residential.

Such requests take place at open meetings, so people for and against such actions can speak up and have their comments recorded for posterity.

Such documents are considered public, under Missouri open meetings and records act, nicknamed the Sunshine Law.

Such rules seem to be at the forefront for a lot of folks lately.

For example, today's agenda for the Cape Girardeau County commissioners includes a 10:30 a.m. discussion on Sunshine Law training.

Perhaps county treasurer Roger Hudson and county clerk Kara Clark can share what they learned, along with nearly 300 other elected and appointed officials, at a July 10 seminar on ethical and legal issues. The workshop, hosted by Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon, covered Sunshine Law issues as well as consumer protection, sexual harassment prevention and response, nepotism, conflict of interest and misappropriation of public resources.

Every state in the union now has some form of Sunshine Law; the federal government does, too. U.S. Sen. Kit Bond and Sen. Claire McCaskill joined a coalition of senators in an effort to shed a little light on a private meeting held between EPA administrator Stephen Johnson and Texas Governor Rick Perry. According to the senators' statement issued late last week, the two men met July 9 to talk about Texas opting out of the Renewable Fuels Standard. The senators basically said Johnson now has some 'splainin' to do and want to hear his version of the story by Wednesday.

McCaskill, in her portion of the statement, said "These decisions must be made in the light of day, allowing accountability and Congressional oversight."

Back in March, I surveyed Bootheel-area municipal lawyers about how they abide by the Sunshine Law. Tom Ludwig, the city of Jackson's attorney and a temporary hire for Cape Girardeau's county commission, made a good point at that time.

"There are some people in government who think everything's secret and the exceptions are what they give out," he said at the time, and noted that point of the law is quite the opposite, though there are a few exceptions.

Meanwhile, Sunshine Law specialist Jean Maneke -- she's the Missouri Press Association's lawyer -- used her most recent "Sunshine in Missouri" blog entry to opine that this state's elected officials have a "serious need for some hard core sunshine law training." She also suggested that the standard oath-of-office elected officials make be enlarged with a promise to follow the open meetings and records rules.

For residents in Cape Girardeau, some openness is made easy by the television broadcasts of city council meetings and the posting of minutes on the city's Web sites. That's not affordable for every government board, but open meetings mean anyone can attend.

Cape Girardeau City Council convenes for its study session at 5 p.m., following by a 7 p.m. regular meeting at city hall, 401 Independence St.; Jackson's Board of Aldermen meets at 7:30 p.m. at 101 Court Street. Among Jackson's agenda items: licensing Gold Leaf Transportation to provide cab service within the city.

Questions, suggestions or tips for Lost on Main Street? E-mail pmcnichol@semissourian.com or call 335-6611, extension 127.