Editorial: State Senate should OK sunshine laws

A series of bills that would further open government doors to the public has been passed by the Assembly and delivered to the state Senate.

Senators should do the right thing for the people of New York state and approve these bills and pass them on to Gov. David Paterson for his signature. "Sunshine Week" - time set aside this week to call attention to open government -- seems an appropriate time to do it.

Among the bills is one sponsored by Assemblywoman RoAnn Destito, D-Rome, who has been a staunch advocate of open government. Destito's bill would allow any meeting of a public body to be recorded, broadcast and photographed, as long as it's done in a way that is not disruptive to the meeting.

Other Assembly-passed bills would:

* Strengthen the Open Meetings Law by providing a second way to invalidate an action when any portion of a meeting is closed in violation of the law. An already-established way to invalidate such meetings is to take officials to court; second, upon finding a violation of the law, a court may now impose a fine of up to $500 on the public body.

* Require the Committee on Open Government to provide guidance to agen¬cies on the development and maintenance of up-to-date, FOIL-able informa¬tion.

* Provide that if a public body has the ability, it must post notices of the place and time of public meetings on its Web site.

* Prevent state agencies from claiming copyright protection for information that is required to be public by law.

"It's all about transparency in government," Destito said. "People want that."

While open government might seem a logical part of democracy, situations can arise that seek to undermine it. Sunshine laws aim to prevent that from happening, and state legislaors - largely due to the efforts of Destito -- have worked to provide it.

Destito also supports "Project Sunlight," a Web site run by the attorney-general's office that provides unprecedented public access to the workings of state government and the information it keeps. The site includes information about campaign financing, lobbying, agency contracts, member items, legislation and both for-profit and not-for-profit corporations reg¬istered in New York.

This week's series of sun¬shine bills add more light, and we strongly encourage the Senate and governor to follow the Assembly and help them become law.