Citizens honored during Sunshine Week, for efforts to open records, are all from rural areas

All three citizens honored as Sunshine Week "local heroes" by the American Society of Newspaper Editors are activists from rural areas, or at least outside metropolitan areas.

First place prize winner Suzanne Harris is from Miramar Beach, Fla., between Pensacola and Panama City, with a population of 2,435. She sued Walton County commissioners in October after receiving no response to her e-mail requests for public documents that contained certain key phrases. As a result of its December settlement with Harris, the commissioners agreed to place the county under court scrutiny to comply with the state’s Public Records Act; hold annual training for public officials and key staff; use only official county e-mail accounts in its transactions; and designate an employee as a records management liaison officer.

Veronica Silkes, who took the second-place prize, is from Landing, N.J.,with just over 7,000 residents and 16 miles west of Parsippany, N.J., on Lake Hopatcong. Silkes is the founder of Concerned Active Residents of Mount Arlington, a small citizens group concerned about tax increases and expenditures in Mount Arlington. Silkes and her group gather public documents and share information about borough affairs through the organization’s Web site.

Phil and Ellen Winter, of Waynesboro, Va., won third place. Waynesboro is in the Shenandoah Valley, 90 miles northwest of Richmond. The Winters became concerned when they noticed that the city failed to deposit their property-tax check promptly. The couple gathered more than 100 pages of government documents that showed the city treasurer had allegedly mishandled about $400,000 in city and state taxpayer money. They shared their research with their local newspaper, ultimately resulting in the treasurer's defeat in the fall election.

Forty-eight citizens were nominated for the Sunshine Week Award. The nominees represent a broad cross-section of citizens, journalists, lawyers and elected officials, according to Sunshine Week, a national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include print, broadcast and online news media, civic groups, libraries, nonprofits, schools and others interested in the public's right to know. This year's observance runs from Sunday, March 14 through Saturday, March 20.