From The Lexington Herald-Leader: Kentucky government doesn’t need more secrecy. It needs less corporate welfare.
By TOM EBLEN
If there is one thing Kentucky doesn’t need, it is more government secrecy. That is especially true when it comes to the ever-growing sums of taxpayer money spent on corporate welfare.
House Bill 387 sponsored by Rep. Jason Petrie, R-Elkton, would create new exemptions in Kentucky’s open records law to hide the identities of shareholders in companies getting taxpayer “incentives” to create jobs. It also would hide the companies’ business plans, records about incentives that were offered but not awarded and any other “information declared confidential” by the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority.
“If this bill passes, we the people will lose every right to oversee how economic development works in this state and how our public incentives are awarded,” said Amye Bensenhaver, a former assistant attorney general and expert on Kentucky’s open records and meetings laws.