VICKSBURG - While the buzz sure to dominate the 2005 session of the Mississippi Legislature is money - where it will come from and how it will be spent - there is work the House and Senate could do during the next three months to make the state a better place - without spending a dime.
An example would be strengthening and clarifying provisions in the state's open meetings and open records acts.
This is a soapbox upon which I often climb. But it's because I spend a lot of time looking at state and local governments - and every single board or commission I see providing maximum good government, sound policy and progressive action has one thing in common: openness with the public. It's the only way to establish trust.
A reminder: Being secretive is always a matter of attitude more than anything else. Words written in law can only go so far to convince people who manage the public's business to allow the public to be informed. A statute will not transform an arrogant and insular official into one with a healthier outlook.
Mississippi does have good open meetings and open records laws, but clarifications are needed if for no reason than to give guidance to officials who want to comply, but find the rules muddled.
In the records area, the statute now exempts what could be called "investigatory information" by law enforcement from disclosure.
Although other wording in the statute and court decisions have defined the term narrowly, individual police and sheriff's departments can - and some do - apply it broadly. Their thinking is they "investigate" everything from fender-benders on the Wal-Mart lot to homicides, so any and all information can be withheld.
Objectively, the exemption was meant to shield release of information that might compromise an ongoing investigation - a list of witnesses or potential suspects, for example. The exemption clearly wasn't meant to allow authorities to keep secret the fact that a murder, rape or robbery had occurred. But that's how some read it.
The Mississippi Coalition for Freedom of Information is stepping up in this area and will propose better terminology.
The new wording would, in essence, create a uniform "incident report" form that would be a public document and would contain basic information such as when and where a wreck occurred or when and where a burglary took place. Sounds simple, largely because it is.
If MCFOI succeeds, and it should, gray areas will be cleared up for law enforcement agencies that want to be in compliance with the statute, but also don't want to "spill the beans" in a way that makes their jobs harder. And other officials - those who desire to avoid any public accountability - will get a legal nudge in the right direction.
In the open meetings arena, there's room to improve the notice provision.
As things stand, boards and commissions may adopt policies that require them to notify the local media before any meeting. Many do that. Others, of course, do not - and, under the existing statute, they can actually transact business after merely putting a note on their door an hour before their called sessions begin.
"Meeting" is already tightly defined in the law. It's often misunderstood, but citizens have a statutory right to listen as officials talk to each other any time a quorum is present, even if no actions or votes are planned or taken. A meeting includes every gathering except purely social events.
Strictly speaking, if a city government has a mayor and two aldermen and the two aldermen are talking in an elevator, that's a meeting. While it's completely impractical to think about giving notice of that type of encounter, something should be done to strengthen the notice requirement for special or called meetings - especially those where an entire board is to meet on a specific topic or topics.
Again, many progressive public panels make a point of notifying the press, at least, well in advance of meetings not on their regular schedules. It would probably make sense to make this a requirement for all boards. And in the days of e-mails and listserves, it shouldn't be a problem to get a meeting notice to any citizen who asks to be on a batch mailing.
It wouldn't cost anything for the Legislature to modify and improve any number of the operational guidelines it sets for local governments. The benefits for the people who elected them would, however, be real.
