News & Commentary

Open government legislation in Vermont has faced resistance from local government from the day the original public records bill was introduced 36 years ago. That experience is playing out again this year, as towns, cities, and school boards seek an exemption from a key provision in a public records reform bill passed by the House and now under consideration in the Senate.

That's how Vermont Public Radio leads with its story of the lawsuit brought by the ACLU-VT on behalf of Marilyn Hackett of Franklin. Hackett objects to the saying of a Christian prayer at the start of her town's annual meeting. She has tried over a period of a half dozen years to have the town stop the practice, but to no avail.

The ACLU of Vermont has sued the town of Franklin for including prayer in its town meeting. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Marilyn Hackett, a Franklin resident, alleges that the town and its moderator, Timothy Magnant, have violated Vermont's constitution and public accommodations act.

Vermont's public records law is perhaps the only state law that has no means of enforcement. None. If a public agency -- on the state, county, or local level -- breaks the law, it's up to citizens to go to court and enforce it. Yet even if citizens take the trouble to do that, and win, they still lose. They'll be out the cost of filing the complaint ($262.50) and attorney's fees if they hired an attorney to handle their case (hundreds to thousands of dollars).

Unmanned surveillance drones will soon begin "practicing" along the border with Canada by following the movements of people and vehicles below.

First law enforcement claimed the right to track your whereabouts via your cell phone. Now the California Supreme Court has said police don't need a warrant to search your cell phone. If you're arrested, police can look at numbers you called and text messages you sent.

There is a high wall protecting the secrecy of police investigations, and it can be breached in only very limited circumstances, argued a lawyer for the Vermont Attorney General's Office in Superior Court in Montpelier on Monday. But if Vermonters can't get information about how police are conducting investigations, how can citizens make sure investigations are on the up-and-up and constitutional violations aren't occurring?

We like to think Vermont politics are clean and transparent. They very well might be, but it's sometimes hard to know given the lax reporting requirements for state political campaigns.

Violating Vermont's public records law seems to be catching on. But this time it's not police who are the offenders. It's the state education commissioner.