Midterm II

The Florida Sunshine Laws are aptly named when you think about sunshine. When something is in the sunshine, it is out in the open. Florida Sunshine Laws state that all government proceedings are open to the public for inspection. Any public record created by a government agency is open to any person in the community for review. Public records are broadly defined by Florida statutes as all documents, papers, letters, maps, books, tapes, photographs, films, sound recordings, data processing software, or other material, regardless of physical form, characteristics, or means of transmission, made or received pursuant to law or ordinance or in connection with the transaction of official business by any agency. This broad definition is what gives Floridians such a unique set of public record laws. Other states do not have such lenient laws and may make requests for public documents nearly impossible. For example, a public record under Florida Statute 119.011 would make an e-mail sent from a county commissioner to city council a public record open to the community to inspect.

 

These Sunshine Laws have not come into being as a recent amendment to the state constitution, but in fact have been a part of the Florida constitution since 1909. Chapter 119 of the Florida Statutes was passed in 1909 and became known as the “Public Records Law.” This law provided that any records made or received by any public agency in the course of its official business are available for inspection, unless specifically exempted by the Legislature. Since the passage of this statute, the definition of public document has been reinterpreted throughout the years to adapt to the evolving means of communication.

 

Beginning in 1967, the Government-In-The-Sunshine Law was enacted and became a part of Chapter 286 of the Florida Statutes. This law went on further to say that Sunshine Laws also cover public meetings.The law establishes a basic right of access to most meetings of commissions, boards and other government bodies. Floridians have since been able to attend any government meeting where two or more publicly elected officials talk about any government proceedings. The Sunshine Laws even allow residents to attend meetings of the Legislature. When the problem of deciding to allow residents into Legislature meetings, an amendment was overwhelmingly passed by voters in 1990 to allow public access to legislative meetings.

 

To further the availability of public records and open meetings, Gov. Charlie Crist issued Executive Order 07-107 on June 19, 1997, creating the Commission on Open Government Reform. The commission is a nine member panel that was created within the Governor’s Office of Open Government The commission reviews, evaluates and issues recommendations regarding Florida’s public records and open meetings laws.

 

“Florida’s Sunshine Laws are among the strongest in the nation and give every citizen access to information necessary for participating in the democratic process,” said Governor Crist. “The Commission on Open Government will help ensure that all levels of government are accessible to the people.” Gov. Crist instructed the commission to review policies pertaining to Article 1, Section 24 of the Florida Constitution as well as Chapters 119 and 286.011. The findings of the commission will be presented to the Governor, the Senate President, and the Speaker of the House representatives on December 31, 2008.

 

The commission has set forth specific responsibilities to address concerning Sunshine Laws. The first responsibility is to review fees imposed for copying or reviewing public records. Problems have arose in recent times due to the advancement of technology. The commission is working to ensure that the public is receiving information for the least amount of money to produce such records. Another responsibility of the commission is to review the collection, storage, retrieval, dissemination and accessibility of public records through advanced technologies such as the Internet. Throughout this course, it has been seen that most records are available for inspection on the Internet; however, some records are still only available for inspection at the office in which they are housed.

The final responsibility of the commission is to review the policies regarding the public’s right to participate in agency’s meetings. The commission plans to see if under the Florida Constitution if the public has a right to speak at such meetings through the use of telephone, video conference,, or other remote electronic means.

 

In their August 2007 meeting, testimonies were given as to what areas the Sunshine Laws needed to address or be re-worked. One such testimony that was brought before the commission dealt with the secrecy of clemency files. Currently, clemency files are confidential in accordance with Rule 16 and Section 14.28 of the Florida Statutes. The statutes say that the clemency files are exempt from disclosure unless otherwise released by the Governor. The witness brought forth a testimony detailing how a juvenile in the wrong place at the wrong time was convicted of felony murder and was sentenced to life in jail without parole for 25 years. The witness spoke of testimonies from officers at the prisoner’s jail discussing good behavior and work towards education; however, his clemency was denied. The inmate will once again be able to apply for clemency, but since his lawyers do not know why he was denied the first time, then they cannot work toward rectifying the problem disallowing his chance at clemency.

 

Another testimony came from Joy Ezell who discussed the situations in Taylor County in regard to obtaining a public record request. Ezell had produced the request she had sent to her county government to obtain public records from her county government to any other governing body or the electric, utilities, or power agency concerning the proposed coal-fired power plant in Taylor County. Ezell stated that she had been denied access to county e-mails concerning county business related to the Taylor Energy Center. Ezell further went on to lay claims that the commission shrugs off all public records requests pursuant to situations concerning the company Proctor & Gamble/Buckeye. Ezell claims that the Taylor County government has been acting “out of the sunshine” for many years and that a change needs to come about in order to continue democracy in Taylor County.

Midterm

1. The documents that I would search for upon the news of the arrest would first to look for an arrest report on the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Web site. After verifying the arrest, I would then go to the jail that he was being detained at to ask for a Criminal Incident Report in order to gain further knowledge of the crime and how Mr. Zimmerman reacted to authorities at the time of his arrest. At this juncture, I would ask police officers involved in his arrest questions regarding to how willingly Mr. Zimmerman cooperated with their arrest. If they were able to speak on the details of the case, I would ask questions as to what evidence they had unearthed and what instances led to the initial suspicion and eventual arrest. After receiving documents pertaining to his arrest, I would try to locate documents that led to his arrest. As noted by J.D. Calloway, I would like to inspect the warrant of arrest. Mr. Calloway made it seem that the media did not usually review such documents, but generally had great information for creating a story about the events leading up to the arrest including information about the crimes committed. To add to my story, I would try to find out if Mr. Zimmerman himself had any children by searching for birth certificates with his name listed as a parent. If Mr. Zimmerman did in fact have children, I would want to ask family members or neighbors who were open to talking to the media how Mr. Zimmerman conducted himself around his children or if they had any fears for their current safety and past histories with their father. I would ask the DCF for documents pertaining to Mr. Zimmerman’s Internet usage from his office’s computers. I would ask for e-mails and Web site history from Mr. Zimmerman’s office computer. If Mr. Zimmerman had a secretary at the DCF, I would ask him or her how often Mr. Zimmerman used the Internet from work and if he had ever asked his secretary to erase Web site history from his computer or redact information from e-mails or public spending documents. In addition to see if any possible government money was part of the child pornography operation, I would ask the DCF for documents on Mr. Zimmerman’s spending and use of government funds. In regard to interviews, I would want to interview a co-worker or supervisor of Mr. Zimmerman’s to see if any suspicions had arisen at work in regard to his extracurricular activities. I would want to know if Mr. Zimmerman had any personality traits that would lead one to believe that he had the potential to commit such a crime. I would specifically ask for such instances where Mr. Zimmerman prompted co-workers to outright wonder why he conducted himself in such a manner. To further that I would ask a superior to Mr. Zimmerman if there had ever been any sort of investigation launched inside of the agency about Mr. Zimmerman’s possible behavior or computer usage. In order to keep my readers up to date with where Mr. Zimmerman’s case stands, I would go to the Clerk of Courts to seek information regarding bail amounts and arraignments. In addition to looking for information on the current case, I would also look for past cases including Mr. Zimmerman to see if this was an isolated incident or one that has been recurring. After learning of the bond at status of Mr. Zimmerman I would want to know when a trial date would be held to be able to further my story throughout the entire court proceedings. Finally, I would try to reach out to Mr. Zimmerman himself to address the allegations and allow him to voice his side of the story. Throughout my interview with Mr. Zimmerman, I would be trying to get him to answer if he in fact had child pornography and if his answer was no then what was the reasoning behind his arrest.
3. When Mr. Crist announces his bid for Congress, my immediate reaction would be to look into his performance as a state senator. I would want to know how he voted on certain issues and would turn to my Supervisor of Elections to scan over voting history. I would specifically be looking for items that he voted on that may in fact contradict the campaign that he is running. If Mr. Crist were purporting himself to be pro-life, I would want to find cases where he had voted to uphold such cases as Roe v. Wade or a woman’s right to privacy. Next I would want to know who has donated to his campaign. I would use the Web site opensecrets.org to see how much Mr. Crist has spent on his campaign as well as how much he has raised. In addition to his money raised, I would be looking to see who his contributors were both personal and businesses. I would especially look to the business contributors to see if Mr. Crist might be greatly influenced in his job by certain industries. If Mr. Crist did in fact have certain industries contribute large amounts of money to his campaign, I would then turn to the Web site sunbiz.org. I would be searching to see if Mr. Crist has any businesses under his name that may in fact be a part of the industry that is contributing so much money to his campaign. In order to make sure that no illegal activities were occurring in regard to his campaign donations, I would want to cross-reference campaign contributors from opensecrets.org with companies that Mr. Crist may own or be owned by a large contributor from one of the industries backing Mr. Crist. In essence, I would try to find out if companies that would benefit from Mr. Crist making it into Congress were forcing their employees into donating to the Crist campaign. The main focus of my efforts would ultimately be to see if Mr. Crist would be unbiased in his work in Congress or if certain lobbyists or groups would sway him. I would look into any form of PAC contribution or 527s. I would try to follow the money as best as possible first from the documents kept by the campaign itself and trying to see who is listed as the donor. I would then try to do background searches on these individuals using such tools as AutoTrack to find out who they were and what assets or companies they may hold that would be affected by Mr. Crist’s election to Congress. In order to determine that Mr. Crist is qualified for the job in Congress, I would want to look into employment history. I would seek out his employment records as a state senator to see how long he has worked for the state as well as how much he has made. In addition, I would try to seek out employment information before becoming a state senator to determine if he has worked in the community long enough to understand the needs of the people he will be representing.

News Center

The images of Mr. Larson remained in my mind after leaving the News Center on Tuesday. I couldn't believe how someone's condition could become so bad without anyone doing something to rectify the situation. The work that Mr. Andrews did to bring Mr. Larson's story to light to me is the ultimate duty of investigative reporting. The amount of legwork and time that Mr. Andrews put into crafting a story to shed light on a case of abuse was empowering. I have been towing the line on deciding what avenue to pursue in regard to print or broadcast journalism. Mr. Andrews made it very obvious that amazing work could be done for television news. I for awhile believed television news to be summaries of newspaper articles with anchors merely reading to the audience. Mr. Andrews showed what kinds of work could be done in the television industry that would impact the community. 

Not only was Mr. Andrew's dedication to getting all the facts regardless of how many papers were thrown at him astounding, but his ability to thrust himself in front of the subjects of his investigations was mind boggling. I couldn't imagine researching a person for quite some time learning about their infractions against society only to jump in front of them with a microphone and conduct myself with such professionalism. When Mr. Andrews ran down the owner of assisted living facility Jackie Dorleen, I was half-expecting her to spew hateful things at him or quite possibly threaten violence. It seems very risky to see that the product of your research affects people in a negative way only to then approach those people for an interview. The hard-hitting news stories that had an impact on the community were what really won me over during the presentation. Mr. Andrews made it easy for me to decide that I should keep my mind open to all avenues of reporting. 

Public Meeting #3

Imagine that your mother has just collapsed on to the floor and is non-responsive. Are you going to call several ambulance companies to determine what the best rate is to transport your mother to the hospital. You may consider it after recent government action. On Oct. 8, the Hillsborough County Public Transportation Committee heard arguments from local ambulance operators on keeping a $25 surcharge on transportation bills. The ambulance companies adopted the surcharge to offset the high price of gas in recent months. Commissioner Brian Blair called the surcharge excessive and questioned if it was the commission’s duty to step in and monitor the ambulance charges.

American Medical Response spokesperson Nancy Castellano came before the commission to discuss the adoption of the surcharge. Castellano explained that despite a $10 charge per mile of the transport that patients are not charged for services offered by the medical technicians that operate the ambulances. For example, if a stretcher or CPR is required, a patient is not charged for these instances. Furthermore, the vehicles are left running the entire time of the transport. If a patient needs medical attention on the scene and then needs to be loaded on a stretcher, the ambulance is left running outside the property to continue running medical equipment and the air conditioning. All of these incurrences are at the expense of the ambulance company and are not charged to the patient. Castellano believes that due to high gas prices in recent months that the $25 surcharge is acceptable to offset the prices of diesel fuel that the ambulances require.

Commissioner chairman Kevin White noted that the commission has oversaw the implementation of surcharges in both the taxi and tow truck service industries and that it should be their duty to oversee the ambulance division as well. The commission approved a $1 surcharge on taxi fare and a $10 surcharge on tows to offset gas prices. The charges were adopted in April when the average price of gas was $3.69 a gallon. Since the adoption, gas prices have seen a steady decline leaving Commissioner Blair to ask if the ambulance surcharges were justified or just plain greed. The commission was unable to come to a conclusion on the validity of the surcharge and decided to postpone a judgment and put it on the agenda for next month’s meeting. Since the next month’s meeting was cancelled due to commissioners having previous obligations, the ambulance surcharge will remain in effect for at least two more months. 

Tax Collector's Office

Unlike other agencies that we have visited, I feel that the Tax Collector's Office drove home the fact that their largest goal is to serve the public in a timely manner. Preston made a point to stress how hard they would work to meet a deadline. I believe that their resolution to return documents speedily made my burden seem a little bit lighter when it comes to investigative reporting.
In regards to their Powerpoint presentation, I believe that they did an excellent job on helping me to further understand the meaning of items on tax documents. Before listening to their lecture, I had researched tax records and had been bogged down by the legal jargon. Preston easily described what each item meant and what its value was in regards to a news story. In addition to addressing navigation of their website, I especially paid heed to Preston’s lecture on what items would be best to research when gathering together a news story. His list of public records used for creating a story got me to think about what documents I should request for my public figure biography. I was aware form previous lectures as to what documents were available to me, but was still confused as to how they were accessed and who could offer them to me.
My only concern with the lecture was that I became a bit lost in all the discussion of numbers including homestead exemptions and tax credits. I’m not completely sure how to integrate that into a story and was therefore thoroughly confused as to the mathematic equations. If it were possible, I believe that examples of why these exemptions would make a story newsworthy were offered that it would aid my understanding of the process. For example, if a discussion detailed how someone may have used the homestead exemption to benefit themselves when in fact they abused the system.

William March

Dedication and an inner drive seem to be the required traits to become an effective investigative reporter. The stories that Mr. March talked to us about seemed to require endless hours of research and fact-checking. The simple fact that he had to travel to Miami to research a person’s voting habits further exemplifies the hard work it takes to get a story. Mr. March not only gave us great websites and tools to use when unearthing a story, but he drove it home as to how to use the research tools in your writing through his past experience. For example, the Autotrack system is a tool that I would be able to use on countless stories. In fact, the system would be extremely beneficial to my public figure biography. Furthermore, I was completely blown away by the amazing intuition and enterprise put into creating the Future Tech story. Furthermore, the fact that a story such as the Future Tech story could bring about criminal charges furthers the idea that I have picked the right profession to help enact change in society.
The major difference that I saw in the presentation by Mr. March in comparison to other presenters or other classes that I have taken is the fact that he did an excellent job of tying together the research tools to practical use in a newsroom. In previous classes, I learned about many research engines online or public records requests, but reviewing my returned data seemed to wield nothing but figures and general information on the case. Mr. March gave me the insight to not only read the facts, but to read into the fats and question the data in front of me. In addition to reading into the facts, he proved that it was beneficial to crosscheck the facts with other data to see if anything was awry. Mr. March’s presentation was one of the most empowering lectures on being an enterprising journalist.

Public Meeting #2

Despite a complete budget cut for their group, the Commission on the Status of Women has soldiered on in raising awareness about women in Hillsborough County. During their recent Sept. 22 meeting, the group decided what the future would hold for their involvement in the county. “It’s going to be a struggle today to determine how to continue the group in a creative way financially,” said group secretary Felicia Crosby-Rucker. The end of the week would mark the end of the budget period at which point any funds left in their department would be absorbed into a pool by the county. The commission struggled on how to spend their remaining budget effectively by producing brochures and reports of recent research conducted on women in Hillsborough County.
Group member Susan Leisner urged members of the commission to create a work plan for the coming year. Leisner pointed out that the creation of a work planner would aid the commission in receiving money from the county’s biannual budget and keep the commission on task. Ideas for the upcoming year’s work planner included suggestions listed in their research documents on how to better the female population in Hillsborough County. “We have these suggestions from our research as to how to better the community, but what good are they if we don’t use them,” questioned group leader Cindy Kane. The commission delved into their research and decided to address the issues of women’s healthcare and children’s healthcare in the coming year.
For the first quarter of the calendar year, the commission hopes to address women’s healthcare issues by offering workshops that would highlight issues such as diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular care. Since the commission cannot give money directly to non-profit organizations, they aim to team up with existing organizations to offer services to the community through workshops. Commission members plan to teach workshops and offer guidance to local women in hopes of increasing preventative care of health-related issues. In the second quarter, the commission plans to address issues involving children’s healthcare. The commission hopes to highlight growing issues amongst children and families regarding immunizations. Growing fears over families deciding not to immunize their children due to side effects prompted the commission to believe that entire classrooms could become infected with contagious diseases. The commission hopes to intervene with preventative care measures that address the benefits of childhood immunizations through workshops.
The commission will hold their next meeting on Oct. 27. On the agenda is a presentation from the Housing Commission detailing incoming foreclosure funds.

Clerk of Courts

Astonishment was what I felt when reviewing the magnitude of services offered by the Clerk of Courts office. Having believed that the office merely contained court documents relating to civil and criminal cases, I was taken aback by the amount of public documents that they processed. Unbeknownst to myself was the fact that a door-to-door salesman needed a permit to operate his business which in turn was issued by the Clerk of Courts office. It has been a struggle for myself to determine what avenues to take in finding public documents when creating an article and the Clerk of Courts has offered me a plethora of documents. No longer do I believe that I need to go to the public library and labor over microfiche in order to garner public records documents. Instead I now understand that I can obtain marriage licenses, mortgages, judgments and court papers. Moreover, it seems in my best interest to request the documents in person for a quicker return and smaller charge.

In addition to my newfound knowledge of the services offered to the public, I was interested in the facts detailing marriage licenses. I really enjoyed the fact that the office offers a discount on marriage licenses to those who partake in a pre-marital class. It was astounding at how many marriage licenses that the office issued in a year and I believe that pre-marital counseling will help to keep those marriages intact and possibly decrease the office’s call center’s calls for annulment assistance. In fact, I was amazed at how many calls the switchboard receives in a day. Before taking this class, I was unaware of the services available to me. It was pleasing to read that many citizens use the services offered to them by the Clerk of Courts.