How Much is Not Enough

As part of the Neosho city council meeting tonight, the council will review Sunshine requests from councilwoman Heather Bowers to decide if the requests should be provided to her at no cost.  Missouri statues governing Sunshine law requests allows municipalities to charge (within statutory limits) for the costs associated with research and copying.  The council has had discussions on information access in the past.  That discussion included having the city clerk bring before the council requests by any council member who is asking for certain information at no charge. 

At the center of the discussion will be how much FREE information an elected official should be allowed to have, specifically if that information is not related to current business before the council.  I've said before that having an informed council is good and that, when in doubt, why not allow the information to be provided.  But there are limits.  Both the Attorney General's office and the MML recognize that the act of being elected to a city council does not, by itself, give council members unfettered and free access to all historical documents of the city.  They recommend that document requests not related to current city business be handled like any other request from any member of the public.

Personally, I'm not interested in documents dating back 5, 10 or 20 years.  I can't change anything about what happened then.  While I may not have agreed with every decision the council has made historically, I also wasn't close enough to it to know all of the facts that led to the decision.

I am confident that I can affect change and provide council oversight of issues currently before the council.  That is where my focus is today.  My view...let the past rest and focus on today.  If the issues were there in the past, they will be here now as well.  Let's find them, let's fix them, and let's move forward together and all work to make tomorrow better.