Missouri Sunshine Coalition to honor 3 Sunshine Heroes, including former N-L columnist
Three new Sunshine Heroes, including a former News-Leader columnist, will be honored later this month for their efforts supporting Missouri's Sunshine Law.
The Missouri Sunshine Coalition will honor St. Louis-Post Dispatch columnist Tony Messenger, St. Louis County clerk and St. Louis County Council administrative director Diann Valenti and Muddy River News editor David Adams during an awards presentation Sept. 23.
The Sunshine Hero award is presented to individuals throughout Missouri who have distinguished themselves in their use and support for the state's open records law, according to a Missouri Sunshine Coalition news release. Nominees were sought from private citizens, the legal profession, elected officials, government employees and the news industry.
“Time has shown that for the public to fully benefit from the Sunshine Law, individual citizens and government officials must act to support and preserve its protections, ensure they are broadly understood, and work in partnership to honor the law’s requirement that it be ‘liberally’ interpreted to promote government openness," Missouri Sunshine Coalition Executive Director Dennis Ellsworth said in a news release.
Tony Messenger
Editorial page editor at the News-Leader between 2006-2008, Messenger joined the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as a capital correspondent and political columnist in 2008. He was named editorial page editor of the publication in 2012 and metro columnist in 2016.
Alongside his weekly columns, Messenger is also the author of "Profit and Punishment: How America Criminalizes the Poor in the Name of Justice," released in 2021.
Messenger received the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary in 2019 for a collection of columns "exposing the injustice of forcing poor, rural Missourians charged with misdemeanor crimes to pay unaffordable fines or be sent to jail," according to a news release.
According to a Missouri Sunshine Coalition news release, Messenger has "consistently" championed the Sunshine Law, providing expert interpretation of its protections for citizens.
Diann Valenti
Since 2020, Valenti has served as the St. Louis County clerk and St. Louis County Council administrative director. Formerly, she served as the executive assistant to St. Louis County Council member Kevin O'Leary in 2015 and chief deputy clerk for St. Louis County in 2017.
"Compliance with the Sunshine Law is just one of Valenti’s responsibilities," a Missouri Sunshine Coalition news release states. "However, close observers of St. Louis County government and requesters of records report she has had a significant positive impact in improving public access to records and meetings."
In her current role, Valenti led an effort to digitize the council's business items by establishing a program that allows members of the public to access agendas, meeting notes and journals. Under Valenti, county council meetings have also been made accessible via live stream.
David Adam
Adam has served as the editor of the multiplatform news outlet Muddy River News since its launch in April 2021. The publication serves Hannibal, Missouri and Quincy, Illinois, along with 10 surrounding counties. Prior to Muddy River News, Adam was a writer, page designer and editor at the Quincy Herald-Whig for 34 years.
This spring, Adam partnered with a concerned parent of the Palmyra School District following reports of low morale among high school football players and their parents. Led by Adam, Muddy River News used the Sunshine Law to request copies of electronic communication made on school-issued technology by faculty over the last three years.
As a result, Muddy River News documented electronic communication between high school football coaches and an administrator that revealed "homophobic, sexist and racist content directed at both students and other faculty members," according to a Missouri Sunshine Coalition news release. In response, three coaches and the one administrator were put on leave, followed by the resignation of two coaches and the administrator.
What is Missouri's Sunshine Law?
Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, Missouri's Sunshine Law provides freedom to the public to access information from any public government entity in the state.
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"It is the public policy of this state that meetings, records, votes, actions and deliberations of public governmental bodies be open to the public, unless otherwise provided by law," the Sunshine Law states.
Public meetings, including those conducted electronically, must be held at reasonable times and made accessible to the public. Additionally, these meetings must be held in facilities large enough to accommodate anticipated attendance by the public.
This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Missouri Sunshine Coalition to honor 3 new Sunshine Heroes this year
