Accountability depends on sunshine laws

GUESTWORK | David Porter

Let’s face it. The government really doesn’t want you, the taxpayer, knowing what it’s doing with your money. It really doesn’t.

In the newspaper business, we deal with it all the time. A police department won’t release an arrest record. A school district fires a superintendent and pays him a six-figure settlement but won’t say how much it is. Public meetings are held without giving notice or are improperly held in closed session. These aren’t occasional problems. It’s all the time. It’s every day.

Just recently, a worker’s compensation hearing for a high-profile case in southern Illinois was rescheduled without notice. An e- mail from an arbitrator to a court reporter revealed the message, “We are going to do it on the sly with no press.”