The legislative package coincided with the third annual Sunshine Week, March 17-23, and included bills to:

• require the Committee on Open Government to provide guidance to agencies on the development and maintenance of up-to-date, FOIL-able information (A.3403)

• require notices of the place and time of public meetings on the Web sites of municipalities (A.4053)

• prevent state agencies from claiming copyright protection for public information (A.5472)

• strengthen the Open Meetings Law by providing two ways to invalidate an action when any portion of a meeting is closed in violation of the law (A.5809)

• award costs and reasonable attorney’s fees to those who successfully challenge an open meetings law violation (A.1033)

• allow any meeting of a public body to be recorded, broadcast and photographed (A.1111)

• require that subject-matter lists of records maintained by state agencies also be posted online (A.1975)

Last year, Assemblyman Charles D. Lavine supported comprehensive ethics reform curtailing gifts from lobbyists to legislators and creating a watchdog agency to ensure the integrity of state government (Ch. 14 of 2007).