Sunshine Week Part 2

Here’s to open government — and a little poetry

The Tracy Press has raised some eyebrows over its efforts to shed the light on Councilwoman Suzanne Tucker’s e-mails to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory about a proposed bio-lab and open-air explosions — something she and the city have refused to provide.

First we asked nicely, with an e-mail of our own. Then we asked officially, with a public records request. Then we asked again for disclosure, through a local attorney and a San Francisco attorney who specializes in First Amendment law.

You can read the nine-page letter sent this week to Deputy City Attorney Bill Sartor, below, on the next blog posting.

As we come to the end of Sunshine Week — an annual celebration of the nation’s freedom of information laws — it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of why open government, accountability and the public’s right to know matter so much. Having access to government information empowers the public and makes communities stronger.

Newspapers all over the country have called for more sunshine on the public’s business with laws that improve access to public records and allow the public to keep watch on government at all levels. We support those efforts in California and in the nation.

Locally, with your help, we’ll keep an eye on agencies and officials who spend public money — from council members and county supervisors to school board trustees — so that they will keep their decision-making open. And we’ll remind you, the people, of your rights, which are guaranteed by the First Amendment and California’s Brown Act, Public Records Act and Proposition 59, the state’s “right-to-know” provision in the Constitution.

And now for some poetry

While I’m passionate about First Amendment issues, I can also get fired up over good poetry — good being a keyword.

Poetry rarely finds a place in newspapers these days, but back in the day, it was a staple on the printed page. As U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser said, “Readers enjoyed it. They would clip verses, stick them in their diaries, enclose them in letters. They even took time to memorize some of the poems they discovered.”

Poetry, Kooser said, is a perennial expression of our emotional, spiritual and intellectual lives.

And yet, we have so little time for it.

Starting today, we’ll offer a poem a week on our Voice pages, compliments of Kooser and a project called American Life in Poetry — Reintroducing Poetry to American’s Newspapers. The project is supported by The Poetry Foundation, an independent literary organization; and by the University of Nebraska and Library of Congress.

Kooser, also a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, chooses the poems and writes a brief introduction with each. The poems are short and packed with simple truths that readers can understand and appreciate.

I hope you find them as insightful as I do.

Cheri Matthews, editor of the Tracy Press, is a member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and California Newspaper Publishers Association. She can be reached by phone (830-4201) e-mail (cherim@tracypress.com) or blog (www.editor-matthews.blogspot.com).