At the same time Gov. Charlie Crist was announcing his Open Government Reform Commission Tuesday, his office was readying two public records exemptions for his signature.
One, House Bill 7169, exempts a raft of records related to the state's Workers' Compensation Joint Underwriting Association from public inspection, including fraud complaints.
The second, HB 7201, preserves two already exempt areas of government activity: records on economic development projects the government tries to lure to Florida, and records from said companies that might reveal trade secrets, employee information, and the like. The exemption has drawn heat in the last couple years for blocking public access to information on projects like Scripps that have locked up sizeable commitments of taxpayer dollars.
While Crist was also announcing his new commission, the chairwoman, Barbara Petersen of the First Amendment Foundation, was also getting ready to name him the organization's annual "Friend of the First Amendment" for the second time in three years.
For certain, Crist is deserving. He has already taken two large steps toward reversing years of erosion in Florida's Government-in-the-Sunshine law.
Crist has created an open governnment office to help the public navigate the many barriers standing between the people and their state government. He's also now created a study group that will report back in 18 months.
Florida's much-praised public meetings and records law are the envy of many other states. But they also contain a phone book of exemptions that lawmakers add to every year.
Now Petersen's commission has two more public records exemptions to study.