Mitchell W. Pearlman, the retired 30-year executive director and general counsel of the state's Freedom of Information Commission, is blasting the administration of Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy over legislation that will merge the FOI commission with other state "watchdog agencies" under a newly created super-agency.
Pearlman also pointed at legislative leaders who are going along with Malloy on the merger that he said would be disastrous for freedom of information in the state.
Pearlman said the legislation will deprive the FOI commission of the independence it needs to preserve its credibility as the lone forum in which an individual citizen can enforce his or her legal right to overcome government agencies' and officials' efforts to withhold public documents.
In an e-mailed statement Wednesday about an upcoming budget-implementation bill that leaders of the Democrat-controlled legislature are preparing (but have not yet disclosed the final language of), Pearlman said that the version he's seen of the bill would be "a disaster for FOI in Connecticut."
Pearlman said the super agency into which the FOI Commission would be merged (along with other agencies such as the Office of State Ethics and State Elections Enforcement Commission, and Judicial Review Council) will be "ironically called the Office of Government Accountability."
"There simply are no good reasons for it but plenty of reasons why it should not happen, particularly as it concerns the [Freedom of Information Commission]," Pearlman wrote.