The Coalition’s board of directors held a three-hour work session prior to its March 6 meeting at the Waterside Marriott to discuss organizational and advocacy issues.
The board reaffirmed its commitment to its original guiding principles (see sidebar) and reached consensus on short-term and long-term priorities.
The board was asked to vote on the five most pressing issues from a list of 15. Ten of the 11 board members present voted to pursue legislation requiring a super-majority vote (two-thirds, e.g.) for General Assembly enactment of any further FOIA exemptions.
Nine voted to adopt an explicit mandate requiring government agencies to post on the Internet their most frequently requested public records. Nine also said they wanted consistency in definitions between FOIA and the Public Records Act.
Seven voted to push the General Assembly to open its conference committees, while six wanted to adopt a rule requiring that whenever search fees are to be imposed, a search must be performed by the lowest-salaried public employee having the required skill to perform the task.
There were five votes each to require all e-mails involving public business to be posted online and to adopt an explicit rule prohibiting non-agenda actions at non-emergency open meetings.
The board also voted 10-1 to embrace the philosophy of the FOI Advisory Council’s opinion on e-mail and public meetings, suggesting that any use of listservs or back-and-forth responses to e-mails addressed to three or more public officials constitutes an illegal electronic meeting by local government.
The theory advanced by the public officials in the Fredericksburg e-mail case — that only simultaneous e-mail discussions are prohibited — gained almost no support.
The board reviewed issues the court records study commission faced during its inaugural year, as well as ones the group will likely face in its next two years. Though primarily informational, the session also gave the board the opportunity to look at specific categories of records and information to decide when the Coalition should continue pushing for openness and when to allow for some confidentiality.
Social Security numbers and financial data (e.g., bank account and credit card numbers, but not total amounts of money) should be kept confidential, the board overwhelmingly agreed. So, too, should an individual’s tax return.
However, the board remained steadfast in supporting access to addresses and non-unlisted phone numbers (the former because they are needed to compare property assessments, for example, and the latter because they are already available in the phone book); identification of real property owners; and public employment information on salaries.
Because of their value in authenticating public records, most board members agreed that other “personal” information, such as a person’s signature, personal family information (such as names, ages, schools, etc.) or information that associates a person’s maiden name or parent’s name with an individual, should remain part of the public record.