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, Assemblywoman Margaret Markey 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).