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Economic Development Secrecy Bill

Our Position: oppose
Bill Number: HB218
Sponsor: Rep. Ron Stephens
Legislative Session: 2006

Rep Ron Stephens, of the ironically-named Garden City, has offered this measure that would make meetings and records of any public agency engaged in economic development activities exempt from open meetings and open records laws. This is purportedly to keep “proprietary” information about business decisions like plant openings secret from competing states, which might sweeten their offers to the courted enterprise at the last moment, and Georgia could lose a factory or headquarters or something. That these enterprises already know the very information this bill would conceal, and that they are free to reveal it to anyone they like, such as competing locations, seems not to have occurred to anyone.

An amendment added by the House Economic Development Committee includes such agencies as local industrial development authorities to those which will be shrouded in secrecy, despite the almost criminal record of some of these appointed bodies in Georgia at trying to recruit obnoxious operations such as landfills, sewage sludge disposal plants, medical waste incinerators, power plants and the like to poor rural counties. The idea that slap-dash operations like Industrial Development Authorities, appointed by, and often then ignored by County Commissions, should be given an additional incentive to recruit environmental disasters is appalling.

Status

HB 218 was debated on the Senate Floor on 2/24/05.  When the bill's proponents realized they didn't have the votes to pass the bill, they tabled it.  HB 218 was sent back to the Senate Rules Committee on 1/9/06.

Action Needed

Although the two amendments that will be offered in the Senate, one to remove local development authorities and one to exempt things like power plants and landfills from secrecy, will improve the bill dramatically, it is still not a substitute for open government.  Call your State Senator and tell them to vote NO on this limitation to public knowledge about taxpayer incentives to big business.

Background

The Macon Telegraph - Opinion

Posted on Sun, Feb. 06, 2005

It's no wonder a recent national survey found today's school children don't understand or appreciate the rights granted them by the First Amendment. It seems their parents, particularly those in a position to help strengthen or weaken the ideals set forth in the amendment, don't either.

Our Founding Fathers must have believed that the 45 words of the First Amendment were the basis on which many of our other freedoms rest, many dealing with the interactions and sharing of information between the government and the governed. But interpretations of the amendment have lead to repeated challenges to the free flow of information and many exemptions from its intent.

Open government is not a media issue. It is a citizen issue.

Many efforts at restricting access to how public business is conducted have sprung from fear. The Sedition Act of 1798 was the first overzealous effort, and some of the USA Patriot Act provisions were the most recent, large-scale intrusions. Other assaults on freedom of information have less pure motives than the misguided notions involving national safety.

Citizens' efforts, as well as those of government officials and members of the press, should be at improving access to government-held information, not limiting it. Each closure of a public meeting or loss of availability of public records is an erosion of our ability to be a knowledgeable participant in our governance.

Each year, dozens of bills are introduced in the Georgia Legislature that try to do just that. Too often, those bills sail easily through legislative committees. One current bill before the General Assembly, HB218, is doing just that. Because of intense competition among communities for economic development, legislation is being considered to close out any public knowledge of government negotiations with companies until after crucial decisions are made.

While it may seem innocuous and even helpful to economic development folks, it is a bad bill. If passed, it will undercut the principles of open government by exempting from public disclosure all records, agreements, impact studies - almost anything - about a project labeled as economic development. It could be a much needed new factory - or a waste treatment plant, a prison or an out-of-state garbage dump. This bill, along with a concurrent bill, SB5, that could dismantle private property rights for government-sanctioned private development, would seriously erode citizens' input into how their tax money is directed and how their communities are governed.

The Georgia First Amendment Foundation, an organization focused on open government, and the Georgia Press Association have been fighting such bills. Hollie Manheimer, GFAF executive director, believes, "Public records laws are supposed to empower and encourage citizens to become informed about their community and those who lead it ... There is already a patchwork of exemptions to the existing law to protect private interests who are negotiating with government. We don't need to create a whole quilt."

It is time every citizen got involved. In a national effort to call attention to this and similar efforts to close government proceedings, the week of March 13 is designated as National Sunshine Week. It evolved from a three-year effort in Florida to make open government a citizens' fight, not just a legislators' choice.Barbara Petersen, president of the First Amendment Foundation in Florida, credits greater public awareness of efforts to close voters out of the decision-making processes as having made a difference in her state. "Almost all of the roughly 300 (anti-) open government bills introduced in the Florida Legislature over the past three years have failed. Legislators and other key government officials have begun to realize that being tagged a supporter of open government is a good thing, and we have developed a growing number of highly visible champions within the system."

Here's our call to action: Legislators need to vote no to HB218 and other superflous attempts to weaken Georgia's Sunshine Laws. Citizens need to demand they do. To learn more about Sunshine Week, visit www.sunshineweek.org.