Virginia Leads Pack on Issues Such as the FOIA

Richmond Times-Dispatch ^ | March 11, 2007 | Bill Bolling, Lieutenant Governor of Virginia

[Perseverando]

BILL BOLLING
TIMES-DISPATCH GUEST COLUMNIST

Today marks the beginning of one of the most important, yet underappreciated, weeks of the year: Sunshine Week.

While issues such as transportation, health care, and education rightfully grab headlines 51 weeks of the year, public knowledge and understanding of these issues would not be possible without open government and freedom of information.

Our Founding Fathers understood that only an open government could effectively meet the needs of those it governed.

However, as Virginia's population grew, so did the size of government, which made it more difficult to maintain transparency in government agencies, the elections process, and the legislative process.

To ensure that government remained open to citizens, the General Assembly created the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 1968.

The FOIA put into state law what the Founding Fathers intended: that there should be no deception, real nor perceived, in a government representative of its people.

At its core, the FOIA required that meetings of most public bodies must be open to the public, and that the public had a right to access most information held by government agencies.

[Perseverando]

This seems to be pretty ironic that this article appeared in the Richmond Times discussing the Freedom of Information Act on the same day that the Roanoke Times made the database of VA concealed handgun permit holders available on its site as a result of using the FOIA to gain access to the list.

[Pentagon Leatherneck]

Yes, but the Roanoke paper MISused the FOIA to out CHP holders. Used properly, FOIA and sunshine laws are a good thing.

TC