Local officals receive advice about complying with state Sunshine Law

Tom Durkin, from the Missouri attorney general's office, presents information to citizens and public officials Tuesday, Nov. 17, about the purpose of and how to comply with the state Sunshine Law, which encourages government to be as open as possible to the public.
(Eric Crump/Democrat-News)

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Tom Durkin, public education director in the Missouri Attorney General's office, spoke at the Saline County Courthouse, one stop on an educational tour of the state that he hopes will take him to every Missouri county.

Durkin said his position was created by Attorney General Chris Koster in order to educate the public -- and especially public officials -- about how the state's government transparency law works and why it is important to comply with its provisions.

"The sunshine law is perhaps the number- one most non-complied-with statute in all the laws of the state," Durkin said. "(It's) not because there's evil born in the hearts of men and women. It's not complied with because in some cases, it's not thought about. In some cases, its nuanced language requires interpretation."

Durkin described the law, which spells out how public officials must operate in the open and when they are allowed to operate in private, as "more art than science."

But he urged public officials to learn how to comply and offered some historical context for Missouri's law, noting that it was introduced to the state Senate in 1973, about the time the Watergate hearings were dominating the news.

President Nixon resigned the next year, he said, "not because he necessarily ordered a break-in. He resigned because he was part of a conspiracy to cover up information."

"You can connect the dots between what was going on in our nation and the call for this legislation. It was our state's way of saying, 'not here,'" he said.

He also told a story about the moment he realized why the law is so important. As he talked with a soldier about to begin a two-year deployment overseas, he realized that the Sunshine Law is an example of the freedom soldiers fight to defend.

"If we're willing to send young men and women off to fight or die, we must be willing to be inconvenienced for that same freedom," he said.

He noted that following the law does inconvenience public officials sometimes, but he said officials owe it to their constituents to perform their duties in public as much as possible.

Durkin handed out copies of 2009 Sunshine Law booklets and pointed out key provisions. The most important, he said, is the "liberal construction" of the law provision.

"In everything we do, presume that it's open. Openness and transparency are to be our public policy for good government," he said. "Exceptions to that shall be very strictly interpreted."

He noted that the 22 exceptions that allow officials to close meetings to the public are justified and often allow officials to better serve their constituents.

Durkin also stressed that the attorney general's office is more interested in helping public officials and citizen understand the law than in penalizing people for noncompliance.

"Our office prefers to educate rather than to litigate," he said, though he noted that if education fails to get results, the state will pursue litigation.

Durkin lauded the Saline County Commission for inviting him to deliver his presentation after Koster issued the invitation to all county commissions in the state this summer.

"Your commission responded enthusiastically and immediately," he said. "Not every commission has."

The meeting was attended by members of the Saline County Commission, the Saline County Auditor's Office, the Marshall Public Library board, the Marshall-Saline Development Corporation board, Marshall Municipal Utilities staff, the Marshall Tourism Commission, the Saline County Circuit Court staff, Sweet Springs Police Department and several citizens.

Durkin noted that while he still has a number of counties to visit, he would be glad to answer questions sent to his office and will return to the county if there's interest in another presentation.

Editor's note: Copies of the latest Sunshine Law booklet are available for free at The Marshall Democrat-News office Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Contact Eric Crump at marshalleditor@socket.net