Contact Your State Senators - House Bill 122 Would Enhance the Government's Ability to Keep Secrets

The Standard-Examiner's Andy Howell strongly chimes in on pending GRAMA-gutting legislation

This morning's Standard-Examiner has another informative column on a topic we've been raving about here at Weber County Forum all month, i.e., Representative Aagard's HB 122. Check out Std-Ex Executive Editor Andy Howell's take on the subject:

• House Bill 122 would allow government to keep secrets

Editor Andy makes note of a specific recent situation where the public would likely have been denied important information relative to a recent Kaysville shooting, if Aagard's new legislation had been in place:

Now the Legislature wants to thwart Don and Jesse’s efforts by gutting GRAMA with HB 122. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Douglas Aagard, R-Kaysville, basically will allow government to keep secret any document if officials believe there is pending litigation.
To use an argument that a lot of our lawmakers love, this is a slippery slope.
Jesse says if HB 122 had been in place when the Farmington police standoff with Brian Wood took place last year, the public might not know to this day that a police officer shot Wood.
Farmington police refused to make any public comment during the standoff. Neither neighbors, the media, the community nor the family had a good idea of what was going on.
“At the confusing and stressful conclusion to the standoff, an officer mistakenly relayed on his radio that the suspect had shot himself,” Jesse said.
“Without any input from police to correct the error, media took this small crumb of (mis)information they gleaned from their police scanners and unanimously reported it the next day.”
It was only because of GRAMA that Farmington police held a news conference the next day to tell the community that the suspect had not shot himself, but actually was shot by a deputy.
Farmington police had reason to anticipate litigation by the Wood family over the incident.

Moreover, Mr. Howell deftly raises another issue that we hadn't previously considered:

Here’s the crux. HB 122 will actually encourage more litigation because it will be the only means of getting such information. Jesse said the Wood case reveals why government agencies need to be required to release records “especially if there is the possibility of litigation.”

Troublingly, Aagard's potentially GRAMA-gutting legislation has already cleared the House of Representatives, and has already had its first reading in the Senate, where it will probably sail through without much opposition... unless the lumpencitizens act fast... and rattle a few senatorial cages.

Andy Howell is right. HB 122 is bad legislation. This bill's seeming inexorable progress must be stopped in its tracks.

Once again we post this handy Senate contact information link.

You know what to do... Do it NOW.