InkBlots

Although the state’s Open Meetings Law and Public Records Act both say transparency should be the guiding principle in government, each statute contains a few exemptions. Police incident reports, for instance, are not public records, and public bodies such as a city council or a board of supervisors can go behind closed doors to discuss a potential new industry.

Let’s be clear. The Supreme Court and most trial courts in the state have been steadfast in enforcing the law as written. The problem is not the courts. It also should be said that many public officials do their best to follow a course of openness.

Unfortunately, some others do not. The real problem has been the Legislature’s unwillingness to provide the appropriate mechanisms, procedures and enforcement measures to make state and local government truly open.

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• The Sun Herald: “Trey Bobinger is a likable lawyer. For years, it was a pleasure to work with him when he was a spokesman for the state attorney general’s office. But he’s now a lobbyist for the Mississippi Sheriffs Association, and even his pleasant personality cannot make us like what he has to say…”
• Tim Kalich: Almost two weeks ago, a student allegedly brought a handgun to Amanda Elzy High School. It was a frightening situation, yet one that wasn’t brought to the public’s attention until a couple of days ago. Why is that? Because Mississippi’s loophole-ridden public records law gives too much discretion to public officials about what information they release.
• Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal: “It is cruel irony that in the age of unparalleled information access many people elected to lead, and their appointees, seek more and more to limit what the public knows about the work and business of government.”
• Geoff Pender: “Let’s give a hip-hip-hooray (or at least a golf clap) to the Senate and Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant for coming up with an ethics-open government reform measure…But - you know how I hate to be cynical - I do have to question one of the main provisions. It would have the state Ethics Commission mediate disputes about open meetings. Hmmm. The state Ethics Commission. I’m sorry, but I just don’t remember that particular agency ever being all that into ethics or open government.
• Daily Times Leader: “This is not just ‘much ado about nothing.’ Public officials, whether elected or appointed by an elected party, should be accountable to the citizens. It is just that simple.”
• The Mississippi Press: ” The Senate recently passed an ethics law reform bill that, among other needed changes, would authorize the Ethics Commission to mediate alleged open meetings violations. The bill does nothing about records.”
• David Hampton: “Government secrecy is a problem that affects every citizen.”
• The Clarion-Ledger: “Mississippi open records and meetings laws are too weak. While courts often have expanded the scope more in line with the spirit, there are exemptions and enforcement weaknesses that throw frustrating roadblocks before citizens.”

Read the “Secrecy in Mississippi” series and learn more about the state’s public meetings and open records laws at the Mississippi Center for Freedom of Information Website.

Lloyd Gray, editor of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, on the upcoming Mississippi primary: “On March 11, Mississippians will begin the process of electing two new congressmen – one from our own 1st District – and will put in motion the mechanism to re-elect Sen. Thad Cochran to another six-year term.”

Jenny Humphryes, managing editor of the Greenwood Commonwealth, on the flap over the obese diner bill: “Can you imagine walking into a restaurant and the hostess looking at you and saying, ‘Miss, we can’t serve you today because you are too fat?’”

Terri Ferguson, reporter for the Delta Democrat Times, on Uno’s upset at the Westminster Dog Show: ” At last, beagle lovers are vindicated. Now the little rabbit-chasers will have the long overdue respect they deserve.”

Rarely do we think much about the sources of information swirling around us in the battle to sway people to accept a certain point of view on social issues and public policies. The massive public relations machinery of government, spin doctors on talk shows and in interviews, speeches of government officials and bloggers bombard the public with partisan positions on issues.

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• Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant made it very clear Friday afternoon how he felt about the need to further open up Mississippi’s governing bodies as they conduct the public’s business. “Good government is not only efficient, it is open,” Bryant said. “We’re certainly going to try and do something about it because I am very sensitive to that.
• How other states handle open records.
• The Clarion-Ledger: American citizens have a powerful tool in ensuring their government functions as it should and is accountable - the federal Freedom of Information Act.

Michael David Graham, convicted in 1989 of the shotgun murder of his ex-wife, has applied to Gov. Haley Barbour for a pardon. A trusty at the governor’s mansion, Graham has for 30 days published a notice of his intention to seek a pardon in The Mississippi Press newspaper, as required by state law.

Many towns have a Bob Bryant, and those that don’t would do well to get one. For the past several years, Bryant has been the open-government advocate for Crenshaw, a Delta city of about 900.”He’s a relentless sort of guy,” said John Howell, publisher of The Panolian, the local newspaper that covers Crenshaw politics. “He’s a real thorn in their side.”

The public at-large could learn a thing or two from Bryant, and about what is and isn’t supposed to be secret in the Magnolia State. The Mississippi Supreme Court has made it clear that all deliberations of government boards are meant to be aired in public unless specifically exempted.

Want to know if someone’s been arrested? If they’re getting married or have filed for divorce? How about how much money your town plans to spend this year on those pesky potholes? Under state law, it shouldn’t be that hard to find out.

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• A Hattiesburg legislator wants the Legislature to do more to open government to its citizens. He wants to start by giving the public access to state contracts, subcontracts and grants.
• The Clarion-Ledger: The state Public Records law begins with the statement that allowing access to records is Mississippi state policy and that providing access is the duty of public officials, but you wouldn’t know that in many communities around the state.
• College Board operated quietly on USM coast land search.
• RELATED: The Mississippi Senate, without a dissenting vote, passed comprehensive ethics legislation Thursday that would make it easier for a citizen to challenge closed governmental meetings and would put in place regulations governing blind trusts.
• David Hampton: “I admit that I was suspcious when senators started talking about beefing up the Ethics Commission, but this is really a good bill.” AUDIO-ON-DEMAND: David Hampton is interviewed on MPB’s Mississippi Edition.

Rudy Abramson, a former longtime Washington reporter for The Los Angeles Times who wrote a highly praised biography of American statesman W. Averell Harriman, has died. He was 70. Abramson was a native Appalachian, born in Florence, Ala., on Aug. 31, 1937. After graduating from the University of Mississippi in 1958, he became a reporter for the Nashville Tennessean.  After several years as the Tennessean’s Washington correspondent, he was hired by The Times, where he “had a part in just about every major story for 30 years,” said longtime colleague Richard T. Cooper.

Just because an organization “looks” like it’s a public agency, it may not be. And if it isn’t a public agency, it’s not obligated to be open in any way. That’s the way Mississippi’s laws read as they address issues of open meetings and open records.

In Lee County, the Community Development Foundation and its associated Council of Governments get public attention and make public impacts, operating outside the view of the general public. But CDF’s business doesn’t belong to the public, even though its impact does. It’s a nonprofit membership organization. If you want to know CDF’s inner workings, you can’t, except for public pronouncements and internally produced publications.

When Houston Nutt was introduced as the new University of Mississippi football coach on Nov. 28, there were certainly reasons for some to be surprised.

But the real stunner was that Ole Miss actually announced what it would be paying Nutt. For years, Ole Miss and Mississippi State athletic officials have declined to give The Clarion-Ledger complete compensation information for its coaches, specifically the supplemental income provided by the Bulldog Foundation at Mississippi State and the UMAA Foundation at Ole Miss.

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• As part of an ongoing series examining secrecy in Mississippi government, The Clarion-Ledger this week asked a select group of government officials to view a copy of their meeting minutes for December. In each case, the newspaper was able to access the records - where they existed.
• A comprehensive ethics and open-government bill could come up for Senate debate today, and Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant says he hopes it will get unanimous approval.
• Sun Herald: What goes on in the shadows, “between the dark and the daylight,” will remain a mystery until constituents demand that legislators bring all of the public’s business out into the open. Spending public money and setting public policy should be no one’s private affair.
• The Daily Mississippian: Secrets don’t make friends. Nor do they make good citizens. In a nation that has become more and more secretive in its governmental practices since the events of Sept. 11 more than six years ago, Mississippi remains one of the most secretive states. Its public records and open meetings laws are among the worst on the books.
• The Commercial Dispatch: Recently, the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors circumvented the open meetings law in still another way by holding meetings between two existing board members and three incoming board members prior to their taking office at the start of this year. Important public business, such as discussions of who would be the next county administrator, took place at back-room meetings, which were legal because only two of the current five-member board were present, which is not a quorum. The three incoming board members, although already elected, were still just private citizens until they were sworn into office.

Candidates vying to succeed Congressman Chip Pickering in Mississippi’s Third Congressional District met the public one night this week at a fish house in Noxapater. The cooks took care of the fish, but reporters, including Macon Beacon editor Scott Boyd, grilled the candidates.

When Tremont residents Paula and Harold Kennedy tried to get the investigative file on the 2004 murder of the their son Brian, the couple’s requests were denied.

Although the confessed assailant committed suicide and investigators closed the case, the Kennedys were told state law prohibits their access to their son’s murder record. The Mississippi Public Records Act exempts information gathered for a criminal investigation.

An inmate’s fatal beating at the Harrison County jail in 2006 raised questions the Sun Herald believed public records could help answer.

The newspaper filed a series of public-records requests with the Sheriff’s Department, but the agency denied most of the requests, claiming the documents were not public records because they were part of a criminal investigation.

In a meeting with reporters in December, new Jackson Police Chief Malcolm McMillin made clear his policy toward providing information to media.

“We’re not going to have any bull- over here about what you are entitled to,” he said. “I’ve had good media relations for 16 years, and I’m not going to change that now.”

Several recent examples, however, show McMillin has limits to how open he’ll be.

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• The Sun Herald: “The need for a cooperative relationship between the press and the police cannot be overstated. Working together, these two professions can better serve - and protect - the public.”
• Officials in a random sample of Mississippi cities said they would release weekly tallies of reported crimes to anyone who asked, but the director of a crime watchdog group said she has had trouble with some jurisdictions.
• The Clarion-Ledger: “Public safety is a basic function of government and one of the most important issues when it comes to citizen involvement. Yet, information about crimes and the activities of law enforcement is often hidden from the public.”
• SID SALTER: “Give (Attorney General Jim) Hood his due — he has paid prior lip service to wanting campaign finance reform. But lacking the ability to provide any leadership toward getting those reforms enacted, Hood went about his merry way engaging in some of the campaign finance practices he said Monday should be remedied.”
• The Bolivar Commercial: “’I’ve Got A Secret’ is the name of a dangerous game state politicos love to play. And they do so with gusto…The exceptions that plague the Mississippi Open Meetings Act and the Public Records Act have made governmental bodies in our state some of the most secretive bodies in America.”

Jesse Holland, once the editorial page editor and then managing editor of The Daily Mississippian, has written a new book, “Black Men Built the Capitol.”