Editorial: This is national Sunshine Week

Sunshine Week is March 14-20. The week has been celebrated each spring since 2005 when it was started by the American Society of News Editors, now the News Leaders Association.
It is an ongoing program to promote local government. We faithfully attend many meetings in the tri-community to give our readers information on what is going on in their neighborhoods. What will affect their pocketbooks. What will change the landscape in their area.
Some municipalities in the state, including Sumpter Township, are publishing their legal notices in on-line publications, instead of in a newspaper of general circulation where people without computers can see them.
Many people in Sumpter do not use computers and they tell us the only way they know what is going on in their township is to read our reports in the Independent.
For several years the state legislature has been considering a change in the law to allow municipalities to publish their legal notices on their web pages, but so far it has not changed the law.
Van Buren Township is so good at posting information that anyone reading its newspaper of record (the Independent) is sure to know what’s happening in their neighborhood. VBT posts its legal notices precisely and with great care.
Belleville has not been publishing its minutes for about six months, since the new clerk came. She said she thinks we do such a good job, it would be repetitive.