Praise for Marc Dann....from a very conservative newspaper nonetheless!

Open government
Lima News
April 10, 2007

Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann last week sent a very clear and very welcome message to those in state government: You serve the people, and the people should see what you're doing.

Dann ordered three members of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to step down because their nominations were handled in secret, violating Ohio’s Open Meetings Act. Dann wants the 12-member PUCO-nominating board to redo the nominations in public, The Columbus Dispatch reported. It’s a minor issue in terms of PUCO, as Gov. Ted Strickland is going to reappoint PUCO Chairman Alan R. Schriber and commission members Ronda Hartman Fergus and Valerie A. Lemmie after their April 15 resignations. However, Dann’s order is huge in terms of public bodies acting in full view of the public they serve.

A representative of the environmental organization Ohio Citizen Action (www.ohiocitizen.org/) made a public records request to obtain minutes from the nominating council’s Feb. 7 meeting, the Dispatch reported. The minutes showed the group went into closed session to interview 10 candidates and came out to public session to nominate, without any discussion, four people. Dann also has ordered the process be redone for Paul Centolella, whom Strickland choose for a soon-to-be-vacant spot.

Dann told the Dispatch he wants to send “a clear message to every agency in state government: Obey the Sunshine Law, follow the public records act, allow the public business to be transacted in public so that, at the end of the day, the public can judge whether you've done a good job or not.”

Good for Dann. Every government employee should be as dedicated to protecting the public’s right to know how its government operates.