City Council And Sunshine Laws

Background: Springfield City Council opposes a Court of Appeals' decision which declares police internal affairs records to be in the public domain under Missouri's Sunshine Laws.

I strongly support Mr. Burlison, who is currently gathering signatures in a bid for a City Council seat. The citizens of Springfield owe their thanks to Doug for his perseverance in making the city audit a reality.

By Doug Burlison

Several principles come into play with this internal affairs vs. sunshine law issue:

• Open and honest government

• An individual's right to privacy

• A police officer's right not to incriminate his- or herself

• A victim's right to justice

It will be the state legislature's job to address this issue in a way that achieves a balance between opposing rights.  To cut off public access to any internal affairs records could open the door to abusive police practices, without any means of informed recourse to prosecute the bad cops.  To make a city employee's entire work history public record could create problems in trying to retain the good cops.  Would you want anyone to have access to your private information to use against you?

A few ideas come to mind in attempting to strike a proper balance:

• Apply the sunshine law without restraint where there is just cause (i.e. charges or a lawsuit have been filed).

• Require serious penalties for false allegations or frivolous lawsuits.

• Give the civilian police review board more authority, to offset any limiting of the sunshine law (this is a body that is appointed by elected officials, so there is limited accountability to the citizen).

• Ensure that individual officers can enact an adequate defense in civilian police review board hearings (this is not assured under the current system).

This is just off the top of my head, but I do wonder why this issue is considered a legislative priority for Springfield in 2007?  I hope that this is not a smokescreen for the damage done to police and fire pensions over the years.  I would suggest if we are worried about the retention of quality personnel, we should focus on repairing their financial futures.  As far as the internal affairs vs. the sunshine law issue, it is a priority, but mainly for the state of Missouri.  I think Springfield should concentrate on matters that are critical for this municipality when we are assessing our city's priorities.

Comments

[The Libertarian Guy]

Now that we've cleared the hurdle of getting Doug Burlison on the ballot next April... the hard work begins.

Liberty-minded, fiscal conservative types are invited to attend a meeting December 2nd, 7 pm, at the Panera on Nationa & Elm. We'll be working on Doug's campaign at that meeting, and we'd love to have public input.