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Press Manorville & Moriches Editorial |
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Written by Administrator
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Wednesday, 28 July 2010 |
| Publication:Press of Manorville; | Date:Jul 23, 2010; | Section:Opinion; | Page Number:12 | | |
Shine A Light
The leaders of the town’s numerous civic and activist groups received an exceptionally useful tool on Monday, courtesy of a guest speaker from Albany who addressed the Affiliated Brookhaven Civic Organization.
The executive director of the New York State Committee on Open Government, Robert J. Freeman, urged about two dozen civic leaders at an ABCO forum in Coram to study and learn about the state’s Open Meetings and Freedom of Information laws.
The Open Meetings Law sets the rules for municipal panels, such as town boards and school boards, ensuring that the boards meet openly in public and never conduct business in secret, or behind closed doors. As Mr. Freeman quipped at Monday’s meeting: “If you tell the world what’s going on, good things begin to happen and bad things stop happening.”
In a town with the kind of checkered past that has tagged Brookhaven with an assortment of unsavory nicknames, including “Crookhaven,” that’s an important sentiment.
The Freedom of Information Law stipulates that most documents produced by municipalities and school boards must be made available for public review by interested citizens, and sets the rules for how those municipalities must distribute the documents when they are requested by the public. In tandem with the Open Meetings Law, this is another very effective tool available to all those who want to shine a light on government.
When our elected officials, from school board members to federal lawmakers, know that an interested public, including the news media, is keeping an eye on them, corruption and coverups have little or no place to take root, and government will become much more responsive to the will of the people.
At Monday’s meeting, Mr. Freeman held up a copy of a brochure titled “Your Right To Know—New York State Open Government Laws,” which is produced by his office and available for download from his agency’s website at dos.state.ny.us/coog. He said that everyone who plans to attend a government or school board meeting should arm themselves with the brochure.
And it’s not just civic leaders and the media who need to arm themselves with the state’s sunshine laws, which have been around since the 1970s. Members of the community at large need to step up to the plate and let our officials know they are watching, too.
“Our vehicle, for better or for worse, may be civic associations. It may be the news media. There are lots of possibilities,” he said. “But shedding light on whatever it might be tends to be the best cure.”
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