Board amends state legislative priorities after heated debate over Sunshine Law exemption

Hillsborough County commissioners on Feb. 5, 2025 approved amendments to the county’s 2025 state legislative agenda but, after extensive debate, directed staff to return with a clarified priority list and removed a proposed blanket exemption to Florida’s Sunshine Law from the board’s immediate legislative package.

The board voted to accept updates that added seven items to the agenda — including emergency operations and infrastructure requests — with staff reporting the revised legislative package would total roughly $36.1 million in appropriation requests. Cameron Pennant, the county’s director of government relations, briefed the board on the additions and said they included requests tied to post-hurricane recovery and capital improvements.

The meeting then turned to a sustained debate over an item that would have asked the state legislature to amend the Sunshine Law to allow limited private discussions by commissioners in certain circumstances. Commissioner Donna Cameron Cepeda, who had placed the item on the draft list, defended the proposal as focused on “improv[ing] the functionality of the decision making process for commissioners and specific boards,” saying it was “not about reducing transparency but rather advocating to improve the functionality of the decision making process.”

Other commissioners objected to the proposal’s breadth and to the packet presentation; several members said the draft document had previously shown individual commissioners’ items in red or labeled by name but that the final packet removed that visual distinction. Commissioner Chris Bowles and others pressed that a narrow, targeted request — for example, a limited Sunshine exemption tailored to the Commission on Human Trafficking to protect investigative tactics — would be preferable to a broad change.

Brandon Wagner, government-relations staff, explained the packet process: staff compiles suggestions from departments and individual commissioners and initially marks commissioner-origin items by name so commissioners can see authorship. “The things that were without name were staff,” Wagner said, and once the board adopts the program it becomes the board’s document; staff then typically removes names before sending the package to Tallahassee.

After substitute motions and discussion, the board voted 6-0 to direct the government affairs office to bring back a revised legislative priority list for the 2025 session, separately identifying which items are board positions and which are individual commissioner priorities. Commissioners said they wanted clearer process controls and the ability to revisit or amend items at a subsequent meeting.

Ending: The amended legislative program was approved in concept; staff will return with a clarified, finalized priority list that separates board-wide positions from individual commissioner items and addresses the Sunshine Law language.