by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
It just might be raining outside (there’s a better than even chance), but for several City employees and elected officials, this week is all about the sunshine — as in Florida’s Sunshine Laws.
Two summers ago, The Florida Times-Union did a series of stories on Sunshine Law violations by City Council. There were allegations of unnoticed meetings and meetings in which either no notes were taken or very minimal notes were taken. Several weeks later, Council passed an ordinance that created a new chapter (the Jacksonville Sunshine Law Compliance Act) of the City’s Ordinance Code. That same summer, a grand jury — Holland & Knight attorney George Schultz served as foreman — was convened by State Attorney Harry Shorstein to look into the alleged violations.
Jan. 17, 2008, the grand jury report was released and, in short, no violations were found. Still, Council passed another ordinance amending the Compliance Act. That amendment stipulated that the Council director — Cheryl Brown, in this case — create a Sunshine Law compliance manual and conduct training sessions for the executive assistants to the 19 Council members.
Thursday at City Hall, the executive council assistants along with several members of Legislative Services, went through a four-hour training/reminder seminar. Today, those same ECAs, along with their bosses, are at the Main Library for a training seminar during which they are scheduled to hear from General Counsel Rick Mullaney, Ethics Officer Carla Miller, State Attorney Angela Corey, Council Auditor Kirk Sherman, Alexis Lambert of the Florida Attorney General’s Office, Brown and other members of the Office of General Counsel.
Miller, who spoke yesterday as well, said since joining the City in December of 2007 compliance with the State’s Sunshine Laws has been nearly perfect. Miller stressed the importance of government having the public’s trust.
“When trust goes down, people get crazier with wanting information,” she said. “People tend to get panicky with trust and wanting documents and there’s a relationship between the two.”
Miller said the current system that Brown has developed and the ECAs are implementing is working.
“It’s one of the best e-government processes in the country. It is amazing.” said Miller, adding when questioned, she shows or talks people through the system of public notices, meetings and documentation. “When they see what we are doing, they are blown away. It really is amazing.”
The current public notice system consists of the following:
• City Council resources calendar
• Council Web calendar
• Public notice Web application
• Online Council agendas, matters pending and minutes
• Council and Council committee video
• Council member e-mail on-line
• Bill search on-line
• Lobbyist registry
• Gift disclosure registry
Brown’s training manual also includes a sample meeting notice, amended notice, cancellation notice, memorandums and directions on how to use the Council calendar. In short, if the rules are followed, the 2007 grand jury investigation, in theory, will be the last.
A recent review produced by Sherman’s office also showed Council is abiding by the law. While most of his office’s work involves number-crunching, Sherman said he and his staff do periodically conduct reviews of City systems.
“There was a real narrow focus pursuant to what we are supposed to do pursuant to Ch. 15,” said Sherman, adding most of what his office examined were meetings that took place between two or three Council members in one of the committee rooms in the Council offices. He said there were about 52 such meetings between May 1, 2008 and April 30.
“First off, and most importantly, we are complying with the Florida Statutes, which is the underlying law,” said Sherman. “In a few instances we saw boo-boos.”
Sherman said what impressed him most about the recent review was the improvement and compliance from the previous review.
“Most of the errors from the first six weeks were caught and that’s real good stuff,” said Sherman.
Brown said one of her top priorities is to make sure minutes from meetings are available to the public within 72 hours of that particular meeting.
“That’s our goal,” said Brown. “Sometimes that can’t be achieved, but that’s our goal and we are doing very well with that.”
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