David Villano

They see it as this is public money.

So whether you live in Overtown or Shenandoah or Cognero, it doesn't really matter.

And from our point of view, there's a big pot of money and we'd like to find out where it's going, where it comes from and where it's going.

And that's really been the real challenge for us is that we're just trying to do the kinds of things that we thought our elected officials

were planning to do once they got into office.

So specifically, let me refer to our D2 commissioner, Damian Pardo, and our mayor, Eileen Higgins, you mentioned.

For both of them, the word transparency was very important in their campaigns.

I actually maybe naively felt that these would be partners with the Coconut Grove Spotlight and other media outlets to try to bring some sort of general understanding and overview of how the city operates, how the decisions are made.

I guess our approach to the spotlight is that an informed citizenry can help make better decisions.

And, but to my surprise, again, maybe I'm naive, but we really have not had those willing partners.

So the kinds of things that we've been reporting on, the spending, the salaries, the portions of the budget to go which part of, sliced in which part of the pie,

That's all been stuff that's required a significant amount of digging and mostly through public records requests, which, in my view, is really sort of like the last resort for public information.

It's where it's like there is actually a state statute that says the city must provide this information.

If they don't, you're in violation of they are in violation of state law.

That could happen.

work with us a little bit and say, hey, you know what?

We're going to help you get this.

We're going to work through this problem with you, access information.

We're going to explain it to you.

But no, it's really forcing us to try to, you know, essentially use this legal challenge to get them to release information, which I must say, most of the time on these sticky issues, they don't do it.