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Open government is good government

By Caleb O. Brown

In matters of government, sunshine offers a powerful disinfectant. So when a public servant shakes his fist and ardently calls for either more or less scrutiny of a proposal or program, Kentuckians should pay rapt attention.

Rep. Larry Clark recently called for a great deal more scrutiny in the push to build a new arena (somewhere) in Louisville. Clark, D-Louisville, questioned not just the location preferences of the General Assembly versus those of the Louisville Arena Authority, but the integrity of the whole arena process.

“I think we have a challenge incumbent on all of us to make sure that when we do this arena that we can go back home and say we’ve done the right thing,” Clark told the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee.

He said legislators “owe it to the Commonwealth of Kentucky to scrutinize” the arena project to “make it the best deal for everyone.”

Clark stated that his own constituency is overwhelmingly against the arena project and that he “wouldn’t even put the money in the budget” if his position represented a mere political ploy.

But even if Clark’s call for public scrutiny is politically based, his call for a deeper examination indicates his apparent conviction that more scrutiny might reveal deeper problems that deserve attention before the money is spent.

Whatever compels Rep. Clark in his criticism of the Louisville arena project, his request for Kentuckians to take a closer look deserves kudos. The project merits the attention of everyone who will pay for it – not just those who stand to benefit.

Kentucky’s larger economic-development budget also deserves a closer look.

Following a Lexington Herald-Leader series documenting the failure of the state’s economic-development programs to lift Kentucky’s fortunes, some legislators have called for hearings. The recent budget approved by the House included language requiring a Legislative Research Commission (LRC) study to more closely examine how economic-development officials spend tax dollars enticing employers to locate or expand in Kentucky.

Economic Development Secretary Gene Strong cited the privacy concerns of corporate America when he told lawmakers to kill the effort to subject the business-incentive programs to evaluations by the legislature.

Lawmakers tasked with ensuring that taxpayers get the best deal for their hard-earned dollars simply must subject these programs – many of which are shrouded in secrecy – to more scrutiny. Fiscal responsibility and transparency must always trump privacy concerns of anyone on the public dole, including corporate America.

Strong’s appeal to legislators is particularly galling when one considers that legislators were not calling for full public disclosure of who-got-what-money-when. Lawmakers simply wanted the ability to examine the more secretive subsidy programs so they could judge the merits of continuing to spend the money. The Herald-Leader reports that “more than 25 percent of companies benefiting from the state's main cash subsidy program between 1992 and 2000 didn't meet their job-creation requirements.”

Strong’s fears that big companies would think twice about doing business in Kentucky due to just a smattering of legislative scrutiny are unfounded. The only businesses that have anything to fear are those failing to meet job-creation requirements, which is precisely the reason why these programs deserve a second look.

Legislators themselves should set the example and flatly reject bills that move away from the sunshine and into the darkness. That is not the direction Kentuckians want government to go, as clearly indicated by the widespread derision that met a recent proposal by Rep. Rob Wilkey, D-Scottsville, to shield legislators’ e-mails from virtually any public scrutiny.

Wilkey, who has since backed away from the bill, claimed it was to protect many legislator-constituent communications from public disclosure. While such communications are largely already exempted under Kentucky’s Open Records Act, his bill would have given legislators a great deal more control concerning whether their official communications would ever see the light of day.

In each of these instances, Kentuckians’ right to information about their government’s activities is at stake. If we can’t easily check up on how our elected officials and their appointees do their jobs and spend our money, how can we know that our government isn’t rife with Frankfort’s favorite buzzwords these days: waste, fraud and abuse?

Charles N. Davis, executive director of the Freedom of Information Center at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, framed the issue simply.

“Freedom of information is a constant battle, after all, and denial is far too often the norm rather than the exception to the rule, which should be transparency,” Davis said.

It’s a battle taxpayers cannot afford to lose.

– Caleb O. Brown is director of KentuckyVotes.org. He can be reached at (270) 782-2140 or brown@bipps.org.

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