The Story Behind the Story on the Non-Meetings

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A newspaper investigation that lead to a “Sunshine Law Compliance Act” adopted by the Jacksonville (FL) Council, and could also result in a grand jury probe began 18 months earlier when a reporter wrote about how the e-mails exchanged by council members might be in violation of the law. That prompted an editorial writer, who also wrote the Florida Open Records Handbook, to start regularly reading the e-mails. And that produced evidence of meetings that violated Florida’s tough open meetings law. (7/3/07)