Let sun shine on Provo's government

Most Americans, nearly 75 percent, believe the federal government is secretive and spies on the public, according to a poll at www.sunshineweek.org

Closer to home, more than 90 percent of Americans say that when they vote in a local city council or school board election, they consider a candidate's position on open government to be important.

The vast majority of us want to know what our government is doing and why. And there's good reason. The entire American experiment stands in the balance.

Abraham Lincoln asked all Americans to dedicate themselves to it as he solemnly stood on hallowed ground at Gettysburg:

" ... we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain ... that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth."

Dedication to Lincoln's cause requires that the people have access to their government's records.

This isn't an abstract issue. Every day in Utah, a tension plays out between local, state and federal governments and the people who seek information about what is being done in their name and on their behalf.

School boards, cities and state agencies regularly deny requests by the public for access to government documents. Some of those denials are proper, because we, the people, have determined some functions of government must be done in private.

For example, a state mental hospital can protect the records of a patient. A city council can close a meeting to discuss litigation facing a city, so it can formulate strategy in the best interest of its residents.

Some denials are baseless. And sometimes governments deny requests as a stalling tactic.

And sometimes, it's hard to know what should be done.

In February, the Provo Telecommunications Board held its monthly meeting to discuss iProvo. The Deseret Morning News didn't send a reporter, and we subsequently asked the city for a copy of the minutes of the meeting.

The verbal request was denied because Provo's long-standing policy is that minutes are protected records when they are in draft form. The minutes wouldn't be available until they had been reviewed and approved by board members more than a month later.