Carolyn DiPaoloStet is proud to join in promoting the significance of your right to know
Carolyn here, to talk about Sunshine Week, a national event that celebrates the role of open public records in a democracy.
Why it matters: Access to public records is essential to government accountability.
Here are four examples of Stet News’ records-driven reporting from the last year:
💵 In April, Joel reported that Palm Beach Gardens had ended an agreement with a developer to build a fieldhouse at Gardens North County District Park after negotiations hit a snag over financing.
- The city had not announced the termination of the agreement with Mammoth Fieldhouse and had not presented it for discussion at City Council meetings. But Joel pored through months of city emails to document the project’s demise.
🪜 In May, Joel dug up city records showing that the transformation of the historic Harriet Himmel Theater at CityPlace into a food hall would eliminate the stairway to the 1926 church’s north entrance.
🐢 In September, Joel reported the details of a contract to clear-cut 14 acres at Gardens North County District Park in August where a daily park visitor worried that the city may have destroyed the habitat of gopher tortoises.
- The other side: The city said a licensed gopher tortoise inspector in March 2024 found no tortoises on the site, where the city now intends to build a fieldhouse and parking lot. But city records revealed the city had not followed state rules in initiating the project.
🌴 Public records requests from Stet yielded a contract that confirmed that West Palm Beach hired a consultant to conduct a public study last year of the downtown waterfront after a disastrous effort to contract for a marina there.
- In December, I used a public records request to obtain a 78-page draft copy of the still yet-to-be-released final report on the waterfront.
Of note: Sunshine Week is a nonpartisan collaboration among groups in the journalism, civic, education, government and private sectors.
- It has its roots in Florida, building on Sunshine Sunday launched by newspaper editors in 2002.
- The observance is coordinated by the Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida.
The bottom line: We are proud to join in promoting the significance of government transparency and your right to know.
I am a co-founder, writer and editor for Stet News. I am also a former senior editor at The Palm Beach Post. For 20 years, I oversaw some of the most consequential stories published by the paper, including the “Corruption County” reporting project that led to multiple arrests of elected officials. I am a member of the Leadership Palm Beach County Class of 2013. I live in West Palm Beach with my husband, Bill DiPaolo.
