By Staff
THREE OAKS - Chellie Pingree, president and CEO of Common Cause, will be here today, March 14, for the League of Women Voters Sunshine Week meeting at 7 p.m. at the Acorn Theater.
She will be one of four panelists to discuss the federal and state laws, known as sunshine laws, that give citizens access to government information and guarantee open meetings of all governing bodies.
The other panelists are: Lee Artz, an expert on democratic communication and a professor at Calumet-Purdue University; Ray Leliaert, Michigan editor of the South Bend Tribune; and Arthur Cotter, chief assistant prosecuting attorney of Berrien County.
Written questions and comments will be taken from the audience and discussed by the panel.
Refreshments will be served.
This meeting is made possible by the League of Women Voters Education Fund and sponsored locally by the League of Women Voters of Berrien and Cass Counties and the Harbor Country Forum.
Purpose of this public meeting is to educate citizens about their rights to access to government information and to the importance of openness in government.
The various Freedom of Information and Open Meetings acts that guarantee citizen access to government are known collectively as sunshine laws, which is the derivation of the term “Sunshine Week.”
The League of Women Voters of Berrien and Cass Counties is proud to be one of 14 local Leagues from across the country awarded grants by the League of Women Voters Education Fund, with funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, to hold Sunshine Week meetings.
The Harbor Country Forum, a non-profit educational group committed to organizing, sponsoring and disseminating information on relevant social, cultural and political issues of public interest to the community, will be a co-sponsor of this event with the League.
Openness in government is a problem at all levels, for both citizens and the press.
In the post-9/11 age, the opportunities for citizens to gain access to information have been constricted in the name of national security.
The government is becoming less transparent and more secretive at a time when many feel that greater accountability is needed.
While problems at the national level will be addressed, we also plan to look at the situation in our local area, especially Berrien County.
The lakefront area of Berrien County, known as Harbor Country, is a resort area. The rest of the county is predominately rural, with a few small cities.
The full-time population is composed of “locals,” who pride themselves on how many generations their families have lived in the area, and “transplants,” people who have moved here, often from Chicago, who are generally outside the loop.
In addition, there is a large group of second homeowners, who have no voice whatsoever.
The rest of residents find out what has occurred by word of mouth or from newspapers.
Just as there are lots of councils, there are lots of small newspapers, so it is often difficult to find out what is going on in your part of the county, no less the county as a whole.
The Berrien County Commission meets on Thursday mornings in St. Joseph, the city in the far northwest corner of the county. Not a convenient time or location for citizens who wish to attend.
Artz will be the moderator of the panel discussion as well as a speaker.
He is the director of the Center for Instructional Excellence at Calumet-Purdue University and a professor of communications.
He is also a well-known writer and speaker on the topic of democratic communication and the role of the media in our democracy. In addition, he is the founder of the Harbor Country Forum.
Pingree, president and CEO of Common Cause, will come from Washington D.C., to be a member of the panel.
She will explain the “sunshine laws” and the Patriot Act. She and Artz will be addressing the “big picture” on the national level.
Leliaert will discuss local issues (the American Society of Newspaper Editors is a partner organization with the League Education Fund for Sunshine Week).
Cotter will address Michigan's sunshine laws and the quality of the sunshine in Berrien County.