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Category: Tom KearneySyndicate content

Vermont must give teeth to the open records law

Posted on August 9, 2010 |
By Tom Kearney



Vermont, like the United States, has a government of laws, not of men — what Abraham Lincoln called “of the people, by the people and for the people.”

It’s an ancient idea, one that dates back at least to the time of Aristotle and Plato, more than 300 years before Christ. It was a keystone of the American Revolution. In Britain, the king was the law, but Thomas Paine wrote that, “in America, the law is king.”

Maybe Armando Vilaseca and the municipal officials of Hartford, Vt., should brush up on the principles of democracy.

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Let the sun shine in

Posted on March 15, 2010 |
By Tom Kearney



This is Sunshine Week in America, a press-organized annual observance to stress the importance of openness in government. Lord knows Sunshine Week (March 14-20) deserves attention here in Vermont.

How Vermont’s laws on public meetings and public records got so messed up is a mystery, but there’s no question they’re messed up. The man who wrote the law, a former attorney general and state senator, put 27 exemptions in the law for the usual stuff — personnel matters, land acquisition, legal strategy in a lawsuit, that kind of thing.

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