IN AN AUG . 3 editorial headlined "S.F.'s Ballot-Box Games," the San Francisco Chronicle raised a very interesting point about initiatives being placed before the voters without prior vigorous, public debate.

Unfortunately, the editorial ran just a day before the deadline for the mayor and the Board of Supervisors to put measures on the ballot. Had it come a bit earlier in the election cycle, it might have done some good. And absent any unusual circumstances, the city's next election cycle is almost a year away, by which time it will be long forgotten.

The editorial also carried a statement that was way, way off the mark: that the city "seems insistent on continually tinkering with its open-government 'sunshine' laws."

Anyone who knows the history of the Sunshine Ordinance knows it's a product of thousands of hours of hard work by city officials and community members.

City hall enacted the original ordinance in 1993. After Terry Francke, then general counsel of the California First Amendment Coalition, drafted the initial language, Bruce B. Brugmann, the Bay Guardian's editor and publisher, acting on behalf of CFAC (as president) and the local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (as freedom of information chair), forged a series of compromises with the Board of Supervisors, which passed the measure, 11-0. Then-mayor Frank Jordan signed it into law.

The current ordinance is the result of an initiative voters passed six years later.

While the original ordinance was one of the strongest sets of sunshine laws in the nation, city agencies and officials time and again found loopholes that enabled them to continue conducting the public's business behind closed doors.

So open-government advocates decided it was time to strengthen the ordinance. They opted for the initiative process so that any future amendments also would have to go before the voters.

Most of the supervisors and then-mayor Willie Brown would have nothing to do with the measure; it made the November 1999 ballot because thousands of citizens signed a petition to put it there. And it passed, 58-42, despite opposition from 7 of the 11 supervisors, Brown, the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, the Democratic and Republican County Central Committees and – guess who? – the Chronicle (though the paper was then under different ownership).

Most recently, another set of amendments came close to going on this November's ballot, but disagreements over certain provisions between certain supervisors and members of the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force – the body that monitors city officials' compliance with the ordinance and with state sunshine laws – prompted the task force to request that it be held back, and the board acquiesced. That package too was the product of hundreds, maybe thousands, of hours the task force members, the supervisors, their respective staffs, and the City Attorney's Office spent reviewing the ordinance over a two-year span. That hardly qualifies as "tinkering."

Moreover, that review process was very open – yet most news organizations, including the Chronicle, gave it no coverage. That's odd, and quite disappointing, given that access to government records and meetings is a staple in the media diet. The Bay Guardian, to its credit, has covered the issue extensively.

Readers might wonder why this missive is appearing here instead of in a letter to the Chronicle. I sent a letter to the Chronicle; the letters editor chose not to run it.

P.S. What the task force learned during the most recent machinations is that it needs to do a lot more research into what various constituencies want the ordinance to look like. The task force has begun that process, and readers are encouraged to participate. Send your thoughts to task force administrator Donna Hall, City Hall, Room 244, 1 Dr. Carleton B. Goodlett Pl., S.F. 94102 or e-mail donna.hall@sfgov.org. And watch for public hearings the task force and its Compliance and Amendments Committee plan to conduct; agendas will be posted at www.sfgov.org/sunshine.

Richard Knee serves on the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force and is a San Francisco-based freelance journalist. E-mail him here.