Sunshine on Public Bodies

About 30 community members showed up at a League of Women Voters function Monday night to listen to an attorney speak for two hours. Mark Anfinson, legal adviser to the Minnesota Newspaper Association, answered questions about Minnesota's open meeting and record laws -- known as sunshine laws.Anfinson, who has also represented citizen groups, says the law started as a three page document that, basically, made everything presumed accessible. Now over 100 pages of exemptions apply -- making the law extremely complex and murky.

Meetings are open, he said, whenever a quorum of the body are in attendance. He noted several exceptions, including social gatherings, when the officials are non-participating observers, or for advisory bodies with no final decision making authority.

The open records laws under the data practices act cover all data of public capacity with several exceptions. Anfinson noted that townships are exempted from the records laws, but not the meeting laws. He also clarified that incomplete or draft documents are not exempted and must be provided. To deny a request for documentation under the data practices act, the person making the request must be provided with the specific provision under the law for the denial.

"The vast majority [of public officials] are willing to obey the law," Anfinson says, they just need to have it pointed out to them. If public bodies violate these laws, though, nothing happens unless someone calls them on it.

The cost of the legal battles put them out of range of most citizen groups, he says, "most of the time it's the newspapers that fight these....15-20-25 thousand dollars is nothing in this kind of field."

Anfinson encouraged attendees to learn the basics of the sunshine laws. "[Knowing the law] is not a substitute for involvement in government, but boy if you know how to use it, it's a good one."

More information is available at:
The Information Policy Analysis Division that also can issue free advisory opinions to citizens.
The open meeting laws are under Minn. State Statute 13D.