Fort Myers Beach holds advisory‑board training on Sunshine Law, public‑records and ethics

Fort Myers Beach — Town attorney Nancy Stuparich and Town Clerk Amy presented a training session on Oct. 22 for Fort Myers Beach advisory‑board members covering Florida's Sunshine Law (open meetings), Chapter 119 public‑records law and selected provisions of Chapter 112 governing conflicts and gifts.

The presentation, attended by multiple advisory‑board members and staff, reviewed when a meeting is "in the sunshine," what counts as a meeting (including emails, texts and social‑media interactions among members), how public‑records requests are processed through the town's NextRequest portal, and the ethics obligations that can lead to required filings such as Form 8B and the annual Form 1.

Stuparich opened by stressing the basic rule of openness: "any meeting at which official acts are taken or where public business is talked about has to be in the open and has to be noticed to the public," and explained that the Sunshine Law applies to appointed advisory boards as well as elected bodies. She said a meeting can be a formal meeting, a workshop, or informal communications that constitute deliberation — including telephone calls, text messages, emails and comments on social media if those communications involve two or more members of the same board discussing matters that may foreseeably come before that board.

The training clarified three practical points for advisory members:…