SAN FRANCISCO'S SUNSHINE Ordinance Task Force, which has spent many years listening to citizen complaints, fighting official secrecy, and trying to enforce the city's landmark open-government law, has a unique handle on what parts of the ordinance are and aren't working. That's why the package of amendments the citizen group has produced is timely and reasonable – and important. The Board of Supervisors ought to be unanimously in favor of the amendments.

And yet, the folks at City Hall, who even in the post-Willie Brown era remain obsessed with keeping the public's business private, are exhibiting a disturbing reluctance to support the amendments. Controller Ed Harrington, who can't seem to find the time to analyze the impact of Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s high electric rates on the struggling local economy, proclaimed last week that some of the amendments would be too costly or difficult to implement. And in a July 7 hearing, members of the board's Rules Committee (Sups. Matt Gonzalez, Sophie Maxwell, and Michela Alioto-Pier) repeatedly attacked the amendments and asked why the changes are even necessary.

Well, here's why the changes are necessary: Week after week, year after year, members of the public continue to show up at the task force meetings to complain that they can't get basic public information. City officials continue to exploit every possible loophole to keep the public in the dark.

Most of the proposed amendments are fairly simple, obvious, and straightforward. But a few are significant extensions of the law that would greatly improve open government in the city.

Among other things, the amendments would give the task force (which would be renamed the Open Government Commission) the ability to subpoena documents and compel testimony (to prevent city officials from simply ignoring the body without consequence, as sometimes happens now). The new commission would also be allowed to hire outside counsel to sue public agencies that refuse to comply with the law and would be given an initial budget of $50,000 for that purpose. These two provisions would put some real teeth in the ordinance by ensuring that there are consequences for scofflaws – and the threat of litigation alone would almost certainly spell an end to much of the climate of secrecy. Further, the proposals would prevent the city from giving subsidies to other government agencies that won't comply with the Sunshine Ordinance.–

The amendments would also direct the city attorney to supervise official transitions to make sure that outgoing officeholders don't take city documents with them (as every mayor in decades has done). And they would require city officials to retain electronic and paper records indefinitely. (Yes, that would require some extra work. Here's just one example of why it's crucial to do so anyway: In 1939 the supervisors passed a law giving PG&E a low-cost franchise deal – in perpetuity. Or so PG&E claims. The actual records of how that nefarious deal went down would be invaluable in overturning the contract and bringing the city millions of extra dollars a year.)

At a second hearing July 12, the Rules Committee members were more open to accepting the changes, and another hearing has been set for July 21. But the public needs to let every supervisor hear the message loud and clear: in the era of Bush, Ashcroft, and the USA PATRIOT Act, the last thing San Francisco officials ought to be doing is opposing greater sunshine.