EDITORIAL Gaetz, of Niceville, near Pensacola in the Panhandle, is laying his power on the line to make an important point. That point is that emails are public records, just like paper files, and they are to be protected and stored for public inspection — even during transitions of power from one governor to the…
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STAFF REPORT State Attorney R.J. Larizza will co-host a public records and Government in the Sunshine seminar on Friday in St. Augustine. The seminar, which is free and open to the public, is designed to help people who work in government understand Florida’s public records law. The purpose, organizers said, is to help “avoid unintended…
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BY MICHAEL C. BENDER TALLAHASSEE — The Governor’s Office released 87 pages of public records Friday showing e-mails Gov. Rick Scott sent and received in the final days of his transition into office that have yet to be made public. The documents, which the Governor’s Office has had for nearly six months, include about 65…
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BY MICHAEL C. BENDER, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau TALLAHASSEE — For a second time, e-mails to and from Florida Gov. Rick Scott have been deleted in possible violation of state law. Scott’s team acknowledged in August, months after a Times/Herald request for transition records, that dozens of e-mail accounts had been deleted from a private computer server…
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BY MICHAEL C. BENDER TALLAHASSEE The e-mail accounts of Rick Scott and most of the governor-elect’s transition team were deleted soon after he took office, potentially erasing public records that state law requires be kept. Scott’s team acknowledged for the first time this week that the private company providing e-mail service deleted the records as…
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State juvenile justice administrators have a tape of a dying teen in custody in Palm Beach County. Two lockup workers have been fired and several others suspended. BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER Two weeks after a controversial state law took effect making it illegal for government agencies to make photos or recordings of a death public, the…
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EDITORIAL VALIANT EFFORT: Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, made a laudable effort during the 2011 Legislature to fix an apparent flaw in Florida’s Government-in-the-Sunshine Law. The 1st District Court of Appeal ruled last year that, while the law requires public meetings be open to the public, the law does not give the public the right to…
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EDITORIAL Gov. Rick Scott acted on behalf of Floridians Friday by vetoing a bill that would have driven underground the business of the state’s airports. Even for a Legislature with open contempt for open government, this bill was extreme and an invitation to scandal. Scott did the right thing by rejecting a measure that could…
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BY NANCY SMITH Transparency in state government has little hope if the attorney general isn’t on board. Florida is fortunate. Pam Bondi, the Sunshine State’s attorney general, most definitely is. She was anxious last week to talk about her respect for the First Amendment and Florida’s open government laws. And her conversation with me about…
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