Spread a Little Sunshine and Celebrate Sunshine Week

Mount Helix Patch is participating in Sunshine Week this week by promoting and celebrating open government and freedom of information.

We aim to engage our communities in conversation about the importance of the public’s right to know and educate them about local and state freedom of information and so-called sunshine laws and the public records that are available, how to get, use and decipher them, and explain how and why journalists utilize them to further our core mission of covering and informing our communities well.

First, a little background on Sunshine Week, which was launched in 2005 by the American Society of Newspaper Editors.  Sunshine Week is a national initiative to promote a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include news media, civic groups, libraries, nonprofits, schools and others interested in the public's right to know.  

The week, March 13-19, is funded primarily by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation of Miami, along with the ASNE Foundation. There are games, proclamations and more all brought to you by the Sunshine Week team, which we have shared with you.

Helix Water District has posted “board packages” back only to November 2010, with a note on the website advising: “For packages previous to those listed below, contact Board Secretary Donna Bartlett-May at (619) 667-6232 or Donna.BartlettMay@helixwater.org.”

Minutes from past Helix Water District board meetings also go back only four months.

Otay Water District has board packets and agendas dating back to April 2010.

San Miguel Fire Protection District offers board minutes and agendas dating back through 2008 and beyond, however, there are no minutes and agendas available for meetings held in 2011 as of yet.

Local school boards have an uneven record on posting board agendas and minutes.

The Grossmont Union High School District agenda archive goes back several years, and boasts 106 files, but many meetings are missing since 2006. The high school board’s 79 minutes go back to January 2006.

The La Mesa-Spring Valley School District, based on Date Avenue in La Mesa, has an easier-to-navigate records site. Its website archives board minutes and agendas on a single page—going back to January 2005.

But the local champion of open board records may be the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District. Its website has a single page that archives  agendas and minutes dating to January 1999. But four meetings are missing online minutes—from June 8, 1999; Nov. 5, 2001; Nov. 7, 2001; and Nov. 21, 2005.

Even so,  open-records advocate Californians Aware one month ago gave the college district a grade of B for freedom information in a December “compliance audit.”

At Patch, we aim to engage our communities in conversation about the importance of the public’s right to know and educate them about local and state freedom of information and so-called sunshine laws and the public records that are available, how to get, use and decipher them, and explain how and why journalists utilize them to further our core mission of covering and informing our communities well.

Join us at Mount Helix Patch and spread a little sunshine around town.