Public agencies need to work in the sunshine: it's the law

It's time we take back what's our.

Government agencies seem bent on keeping secrets, thereby keeping us taxpayers out of the loop.

After all, public agencies such as Florida Gulf Coast University and FEMA are just that - public. We own them and we put the people in charge there to keep track of things for us, the taxpayers. We gave them the keys to the car but it's still our car.

That's why it's so disturbing to see these agencies actively trying to circumvent laws designed to keep us informed.

In the case of FGCU, the presidential selection committee decided to keep secret how each member voted for the six finalists for the job. It was obviously premeditated. They asked their attorney if they could get away with it and he said they could. So they did.

But the Florida Attorney General said that the secret ballots were in violation of the Sunshine Law.

FGCU's attorney said the illegal votes were a "perception issue."

That's probably true: we taxpayers perceive that FGCU's trying to pull a fast one on us. And we perceive that the public university is actively breaking the law.

And why shouldn't we know how they voted. Those committee members are there as our representatives. We've asked them to stand in our stead because all 600,000 of us here in Lee County can't be there.

FEMA's recent actions are just bizarre.

After a federal appeals court ruled that FEMA had to turn over to four Florida newspapers (The News-Press led the charge) the addresses of all the people who received aid after the 2004 hurricane season, the government tried to make the newspapers appear to be the bad guys. They sent hundreds of thousands of letters to aid recipients telling them the newspapers asked for their social security numbers. That's a lie, pure and simple. The newspapers never asked for social security numbers.

Here's what FEMA wrote: "Recently, these Florida newspapers asked FEMA for the names, addresses, social security numbers, dollar amount given, and inspection data for applicants like you, who asked for help from FEMA."

But FEMA's actions are in the mold of the Bush/Cheney/Rove White House where lies and deception are the norm.

FEMA recently backed off its claim. If you get caught in a lie you have to back it up. They couldn't because it wasn't true.

FEMA has fought long and hard to keep information away from the public. In this case, the names and addresses of the people who received federal aid after Hurricanes Charley, Francis, Jeanne and Ivan. But the courts said they had to turn over, at the least, the addresses.

Did FEMA comply? Not yet, (at least not as of Florida Weekly's press time). Instead they spent huge amounts of money (estimated to be more than $1.1 million) to send letters to the more than 600,000 who received aid, telling them the courts were making them release the information that they wanted to guard for our privacy.

Translated, that means: "We're really mad that the courts are making us follow the law and we really don't want you to know how we handle your money. So we're going to try to poison any stories the newspapers write about us in advance."

That's our government?

We taxpayers deserve better. Government agencies from public universities to federal departments need a refresher course in who they ultimately work for.

We taxpayers have been kind enough to let the bureaucrats run our government for us. But it's just temporary, until we find someone better. ¦