To the editor: A recent letter writer encouraged your readers to visit www.njsunshinelaw.com to “help them to make up their own minds about S-1219.” I heartily agree. There is no better place to view Senate bill 1219-a seriously flawed attempt at open government reform-in a more revealing light. Here are my observations after a thorough review of the site’s contents: (1) Senator Bob Martin did not draft this bill. He only signed it. The two principal authors are frequent complainants before the body whose powers the new law seeks to expand to benefit their personal interests. In other words, this bill is like having the fox draft new rules for the hen house. (2) The two real authors are hypocrites. What else do you call people who act like open government crusaders, then concoct a self-serving law largely on their own, sheltered from the public and any real discussion in which dissenting voices might be heard? There is also no evidence that Senator Martin, prior to his introduction of S-1219, sought comments from any of the thousands of public officials whose activities would be affected by it. Indeed, the Senator has repeatedly referred to the bill as a “wish list”-a label that reeks of one-sidedness and indifference to contrary views. One of the two authors-apparently blinded by self-righteousness-actually boasts about the pair’s efforts to refine the measure through 21 clandestine drafts! As an open government advocate, I want to see those documents. Somebody should file a complaint before the Government Records Council over this extreme example of stealthy lawmaking. Oops, I forgot: the back-room machinations of state legislators are exempt under the Open Public Records Act. (3) What you see is not what you get. I wrote my previous letter partly because the information posted on njsunshinelaw.com is often incomplete and misleading. For example, those visitors who read only the section labeled “Key Points of S1219/A2762” would be unaware of the gutting of the “knowing and willful” barrier that protects public officials, the costly subsidy to complainants before the GRC and the inability of public bodies to recover their legal bills if they prevail. The omission of these onerous provisions from the summary tab hardly seems a coincidence. (4) Don’t believe everything you read in the papers. I read various pieces praising and describing S-1219 on njsunshinelaw.com. I was struck by their uniform shallowness and insensitivity to the likely diversion of public funds to meaningless litigation due to provisions like this one: “No action under this section shall be subject to dismissal on the grounds that the matters in question no longer present a case or controversy.” I contacted some of the authors and publishers to voice my concerns over the lack of depth and understanding in their coverage. These conversations proved futile. (5) Sure, I have an ax to grind and it’s worth $60 million. School officials in New Jersey are bound by law to provide a “thorough and efficient education” to all eligible young people. Our mission is to get as much of our budgets as possible into classrooms, not courtrooms. S-1219 is counterproductive in that regard. The public should not be misled by the one-sided arguments of its proponents. Wayne Gottlieb Trustee, Board of Education