This is Sunshine Week! It's a celebration of transparency laws across the United States. Here are some of the Sunshine Laws in Florida:
- Florida's Open Meetings Laws, Fla. Stat. §§ 286.011, et seq.
- Florida's Sunshine Laws, Fla. Stat. §§ 119.01, et seq.
This one is a little misleading if you are not familiar with how Sunshine Laws work, including Florida's. The Florida statutes offer some 600 exemptions where records are not open to the Sunshine. These exemptions include when the State acquires land, for example. Land values are sealed until the State makes a conditional decision to buy the land. When that happens, the exemption expires. Then the public has 30 days to check out the transaction -- except of course that the values of the land estimated by the State and the sellers are not public until after the State has already agreed to make the purchase, putting the public in the position of putting the brakes on the land deal f they can do it within 30 days -- and of course less time if they don't know about it for awhile.
- Florida's Sunshine in Litigation Act, Fla. Stat. § 69.081.
Most if not all States and jurisdictions in the U.S. have exemptions from transparency, not just Florida. But Florida has as its current Attorney General a person who gratuitously vows whenever Sunshine Week rolls around, as it has again this year, to safeguard transparency under the Florida laws. General Ashley Moody, what transparent public purpose is served in your evaluation when the State acquires land in the dark, the public is in the dark, and the records about the value of the land in that transaction are private until the land is "conditionally" purchased even though it is the public's money that is used for the purchase? Thank you.
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