Let the Sunshine In

Editor's note: The following was submitted by Frank Ferraro, an Exeter Selectman. More information about Sunshine Week can be found here.

It's Sunshine Week, a week to promote open government.

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. Sunshine Week was launched by the American Society of News Editors. This non-partisan, non-profit initiative is celebrated in mid-March each year to coincide with James Madison's birthday on March 16.

Though created by journalists, Sunshine Week is about the public's right to know what its government is doing, and why.

It is the policy of the land that the light of day needs to shine on all aspects of government, from Washington, DC to Concord, NH to Exeter. Without open government, you don't know how your tax dollars are spent, how your public bodies make decisions, or if our laws are being enforced efficiently and with equality.

I think people only care about open government when it affects them directly, but the only way to ensure that government remains open for inspection is for ordinary citizens to demand it.

Our state has its own version of a sunshine law.  It’s referred to as 91-A and it states that “Openness in the conduct of public business is essential to a democratic society. The purpose of this chapter is to ensure both the greatest possible public access to the actions, discussions and records of all public bodies, and their accountability to the people.”

So it is rather fitting that our local elections fall during Sunshine Week this year.

Some would demonize those that seek a more open and transparent local government. I doubt that those same fellow citizens would have called that small number of trouble makers in the 1770s part of a lunatic fringe, or demonized a government worker named Daniel Ellsberg, who gave the New York Times a bunch of government records that became known as the Pentagon Papers, or lionized as a meddlesome minority the intrepid reporters and the few members of Congress that kept asking who knew what when during something called Watergate.

But, it’s easy to show indignation to those who struggle week after week to obtain information that is guaranteed to them by state law.  If not for one of these few individuals, the town would never have correctly calculated the underbilling in the water and sewer departments. 

So, during this Sunshine Week, remember that what may seem like a meddlesome minority nitpicking over insignificant issues, may just be defending your rights to someday shine the light of day on your local government.