According to the Portland Press Herald, Gov. LePage has formed a business advisory group and wants to form three other groups to meet with teachers, people in higher education, and environmentalists — all of them to be exempt from the state’s Freedom of Access Law.
In other words, these groups would meet in private with no public access to their records, activities, or even who is a member of the group. All of this is being done by the Governor’s executive order providing that these groups would be exempt forever from the public access provisions of Maine’s Freedom of Access Act.
The Press Herald has written an editorial opposing this action and notes that the divergent groups of the Maine Civil Liberties Union and the Maine Heritage Policy Center are united in opposing the plan.
Gov. LePage justifies this action by saying that he wants people on these groups to be “frank and honest and tell you wants going on” so that he and his staff can see if they can help.
Excuse me?
What am I missing here?
Maine’s Freedom of Access Law provides that:
The Legislature finds and declares that public proceedings exist to aid in the conduct of the people’s business. It is the intent of the Legislature that their actions be taken openly and that the records of their actions be open to public inspection and their deliberations be conducted openly.
The law is supposed to be “liberally construed and applied to promote its underlying purposes” of open access.
Is all it takes to circumvent this law a statement by the governor that he needs secret meetings so that folks can be “frank and honest” with him? Is that really all it takes?
Also, is the governor saying that people who attend meetings open to the public are not frank and honest? Does he really believe that the only “frank and honest” advice he receives is advice given in private?
The Freedom of Access Law requires that laws affecting the public should be discussed in public, with extremely limited exceptions for things like discussing the matters that might harm someone’s reputation or invade their privacy.
There is no exemption under the law for discussions that need to be “frank and honest” because, truthfully, couldn’t any committee or agency say the same thing for any meeting they hold?
According to the Governor, any board, commission, advisory group, agency, municipality, school district or authority should be able to hold private meetings by just stating that they need to have “frank and honest” discussions.
The governor’s actions violate the spirit of the law. He’s not taking a scalpel to Maine’s Freedom of Action law and carving out a small exception. It’s taking a Tomahawk missile and blowing it away.
I wonder if the governor is even worried?
Posted by: Tony | March 13, 2020 at 07:54 PM
As to your article,i like it so much ! Thank you for your award ! I have recieve many award from you !And Awaiting for your update news in the next step !
Posted by: cheap ed hardy | June 02, 2020 at 03:41 AM