With the general election behind us, we believe it’s now time to look toward the upcoming legislative session in Jefferson City.

After the partisanship that has divided the campaigns of Missouri House and Senate members, we believe it’s time for our state’s elected officials to come together and focus on some positive outcomes for citizens.

We believe one way to do this is by enhancing transparency in government. Many of our local elected officials appear reluctant or even downright unwilling to take any steps to enhance transparency. In fact, some of our local elected officials who claim they are “all for transparency” have indicated that efforts at making government more open are just too much trouble for them.

Some have contended that there’s no need to bolster open government when any citizen can request information under the provisions of the Missouri Open Meetings and Records Act, also called the Sunshine Law.

Those requesting information should receive it in three days or less — that’s good enough, these officials say.

Given that, we believe it’s time for the General Assembly to take action.

Perhaps we’re like Don Quixote tilting at windmills, but we refuse to give up hope that someday our state’s elected officials will take action to strengthen the Sunshine Law.

As we’ve repeatedly noted over the years, Missouri’s Sunshine Law is one of the weakest in the nation.

On numerous occasions, we’ve urged our state legislators to adopt some of the provisions contained in the Illinois Meetings Act, particularly the Illinois Verbatim Record Law that requires governing bodies to make and maintain either audio or video recordings of all closed sessions. But opponents say that would require them to do an awful lot of work.

Tim Fischesser, executive director of the St. Louis County Municipal League, previously has contended that such a requirement would prove unduly burdensome to a small governmental entity such as a rural water or sewer district.

“I don’t know what would happen if for some reason somebody forgot to bring a tape recorder, a tape recorder didn’t work, that sort of thing,” Fischesser told the Call in 2010.

We called Fischesser’s objections lame back then and continue to do so.

His objections sound a lot more like excuses and not valid reasons — a lot like our local elected officials who are “all for transparency,” but believe that’s just too much trouble for them.