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I was asked to speak last week at the annual conference of the National Freedom of Information Coalition. My remarks boiled down to a simple message: The public needs more information *about* their governments, not more secrecy *from* their governments.

I explained a troubling trend I see worming its way through local governments in Iowa. This trend cuts at the heart of the public meeting law that has served our state and its citizens well for 50 years.

Open meetings of government boards, councils and commissions give the tax-paying public a seat from which they can monitor what government boards are doing — or not doing.

Last week, I bumped into an Appanoose County woman I have known for several years. She thanked me and the nonprofit organization I manage for shining the spotlight on the actions of Centerville Community School District leaders.

This mother told me I was responsible for her spending part of a recent evening listening to the recording of a closed meeting of the Centerville school board that had just been made public by order of a judge.

The purpose for the 2023 closed session supposedly was to discuss the job performance of Ryan Hodges, the guidance counselor at Centerville High School. But Hodges submitted his resignation two days before the meeting.

The Appanoose County mother was troubled by what she heard on the recording. It bothered her that school board members and Superintendent Mark Taylor did NOT talk about the actions of Hodges, who has been accused of predatory behavior toward a 17-year-old female student the school was responsible for protecting.

Instead, what the mom heard were board members and superintendent expressing more concern about how the findings by an outside investigator had leaked to the public, rather than Hodges’ sexual “grooming” of the girl. She heard school officials agreeing to make sure their public statements did not imply Hodges was forced to resign. She heard discussion about board members’ concerns about how the resignation would affect Hodges’ own children in elementary school.

It’s a challenge, but not impossible, to find topics on which Republicans and Democrats share the same view these days. Here’s one: Election Day means we can all celebrate the end of those infernal television commercials.

My tolerance for these ads has never been high. One reason is the way their assertions oversimplify the pluses (or the minuses) of one candidate’s or the other’s stand on some issue.

It is not really a surprise, however, because politicians have long claimed they will solve some problem or their opponent is to blame for that problem.

We should all know by now politicians thrive on their claims of having simple solutions to what, in reality, are incredibly complex issues. Inflation and illegal immigration are two that come to mind.

One of those maddening commercials shows U.S. Representative Marionette Miller-Meeks, the Republican from Davenport (or Ottumwa). She is steering a shopping cart through a grocery store checkout lane. She says to the camera, “We gotta bring these prices down.”

A family acquaintance was on Vice President Dick Cheney’s Secret Service detail during George W. Bush’s presidency. His Christmas photo one year was a portrait of him, his wife and Cheney together at a White House reception.

Back then, the agent entertained us with stories of people lining the streets as Cheney’s motorcade passed. Many greeted the vice president with their middle fingers extended.

Back then, those spectators most likely were Democrats who disagreed with Bush administration policies. Today, such roadside salutes for Cheney probably would be extended by Republicans.

Such is the way Iowa and our nation have been turned topsy-turvy in the past dozen years. Dick Cheney is on a growing list of noteworthy Republicans who have publicly said their party’s nominee for president should not be allowed back in the White House.

Talk about lousy optics — and I am not referring to out-of-style eyeglasses. Public perception is the topic for today.

There were a couple of recent news nuggets that illustrate in different ways an uncomfortable fact of life in Iowa — that too many state and local government officials are *not* comfortable with the public looking over their shoulders as they perform their official duties.

One case overflowing with irony involves the Des Moines County Board of Supervisors. The other involves State Treasurer Roby Smith.

Thirty-three years ago on a snowy Friday in November, the nightmare of mass school shootings shocked Iowa like it has never been shocked before.

It was 3:40 p.m. A former University of Iowa graduate student with a brilliant scientific mind, and a .38-caliber revolver, walked into a conference room in Van Allen Hall, the home of the university’s renowned Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Gang Lu, a native of China, pulled the revolver from his coat and in quick succession fatally shot two professors, Christoph Goertz and Robert Smith, and another Chinese grad student, Linhua Shan, who were seated at the large conference table. A handful of others in the room were spared.

Lu then walked down a flight of stairs to the office of the department chairman, Dwight Nicholson, where he fired a bullet into Nicholson’s head, killing him.

Lu left the building and walked a couple of blocks west to Jessup Hall, the main U of I administration building. He went to the office of the associate vice president for academic affairs and mortally wounded T. Anne Cleary. On his way out, he paused to shoot a student clerical worker, Miya Rodolfo-Sioson, leaving her paralyzed.

With police officers closing in, Lu went upstairs to an empty classroom. There, he killed himself with a single bullet.

The gunfire was over — but the questions began.