Legislative Bills Detrimental To Public, Press Official Says

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Tucked into the 2,300 bills filed for the upcoming Oklahoma Legislature are some measures that would do harm to the public's right to know about how their government operates,

Sunday, January 28th 2007, 2:50 pm

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Tucked into the 2,300 bills filed for the upcoming Oklahoma Legislature are some measures that would do harm to the public's right to know about how their government operates, a press official says.

As executive vice president of the Oklahoma Press Association, part of Mark Thomas' job is to keep track of legislation affecting the public and the news media.

Every year, legislation pops up that seems fairly innocent, but has implications that are detrimental to the public good, he says.

One bill drawing concern from Thomas proposes to amend the Oklahoma Open Meeting Act to state that a public meeting shall not include ``informal gatherings of a majority of the members of the public body when no business of the public body is conducted.''

``Conducting business has been construed as voting on things,'' Thomas said, adding that the effect of the proposal would be to allow officials to ``get together in somebody's living room and talk about what they want to do'' as long as no vote is taken.

The OPA official said the public deserves to ``see the discussion that leads up to a public vote. It would be like reading a final court order without being able to read any of the briefs that led up to the final judgment.

``You can't evaluate the final judgment until you read the briefs on both sides.''

Sen. Owen Laughlin, R-Woodward, is sponsoring the legislation, similar to a plan he backed previously. He has argued that it is impossible for officials in small towns not to be together informally at athletic events and other activities.

Thomas said current law does not prohibit members of a public body from being together informally.

``In small towns, they may all go to the same church. Their children may be on the same ball team. There's nothing to prohibit them being in the stands and cheering for their kids.

``But they should not be able to sit in the stands and discuss public business, do everything but take a final vote. That's what this bill does and we're opposed to it.''

Another bill introduced in the past would allow schools and colleges to keep student directories confidential.

Thomas said school administrators should not have the exclusive right to determine who gets that information. He said that decision should rest with parents, as it does now.

``Current law allows parents to opt out of a school directory. If you don't want your kid in a directory, all you have to do is check a box at the beginning of a school year.''

He said school officials have used ``emotional scare tactics'' to promote similar legislation in previous years, such as saying sexual predators can get student directories.

In reality, he said school superintendents have no way of knowing for sure that someone seeking directory information, such as even the head of a parent organization or other school group, is or is not a sexual predator.

``They don't know. They just want to scare people by using that argument so they can restrict the list to people who are favorable to the school and not give it to people who are not favorable to the school.''

Thomas said a measure by Sen. Clark Jolley, R-Edmond, ``does half of the right thing'' regarding the issue of trusts claiming lottery prizes.

He recalled a controversy created last year when someone came up with the idea of creating a public trust to collect lottery winnings anonymously.

``Somebody figured out if they set up a trust they could send their lawyer down and their name would never be released. That's the kind of secrecy that breeds corruption.''

Jolley's bill would allow members of a trust to remain anonymous if they disclose their names and addresses to the Lottery Commission.

Thomas said that seems unfair to individuals. ``The public needs to decide and tell their legislators: Do we want to know the names of lottery winners or not? If we do, let's know them all.''

Another bill Thomas is watching would allow public bodies to discuss personnel without listing the names of the employees or officials they are talking about in closed-door meetings.

The upshot of that, he said, is it makes all employees of a governmental entity suspect.

He said he is working with Sen. David Meyers, R-Ponca City, and thinks common ground can be found that ``still gives the public and public employees the ability to know who a board is talking about.''

A bill drawing the interest of OPA officials, Thomas said, seeks to address a situation where information from private foundations comes into the hands of an official of a public institution, such as a college president, thereby becoming an open record.

He said it is a complicated area involving federal law. ``We'll talk to the private foundations to try to clearly understand the issue, because private funds clearly help public universities.''

Thomas praised bills, patterned after federal legislation, that would create a state Web site to allow the public to keep track of how their tax dollars are being spent.

``Those bills are definitely moving in the right direction,'' he said.