EDITORIAL : UNREASONABLE FEAR OF SUNSHINE; GOV. DAVIS VETOED LEGISLATION TO PROTECT THE PUBLIC'S RIGHT TO KNOW.

NO sooner do we praise Gov. Gray Davis on a few matters than we have to turn around and clobber him for his willingness to bar access to public records.

Davis has vetoed two bills that would have made California's Public Records Act of 1968 a real law, not a piece of window dressing.

Democracy's only effective tool against the tyranny of corrupt, lying, self-serving bureaucrats and public officials is openness, pure and simple.

The Belmont Learning Center scandal is a perfect example, where Los Angeles Unified School District bureaucrats hid their toxic mistakes for years by refusing to turn over documents.

The public has a right to know how $200 million was being wasted. But the district had no incentive or fear of withholding documents. Nor does any other state or city agency.

Davis vetoed two bills that would have corrected that large loophole in the law. His vetoes were extraordinary. He turned his back on a long-held democratic principle without so much as a whisper acknowledging his belief in the public's right to know.

SB 1065, sponsored by Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Redondo Beach, would have updated the Public Records Act by requiring government agencies to provide records electronically if they're available electronically. The bill would not have required government agencies to computerize paper records.

In his veto, Davis said he was concerned about violating people's privacy.

So are we.

But SB 1065 merely let people get electronic copies of public records such as budgets, environmental impact reports or minutes from the Board of Supervisor's meetings.

``Either you believe the taxpayers should have low-cost, electronic access to the public records they paid to create or you don't, and clearly this governor doesn't,'' Bowen said.

SB 48, sponsored by Sen. Byron D. Sher, D-Redwood City, would have allowed judges to assess a fine of up to $10,000 against agencies that wrongly withhold public records.

Sher's bill allowed the public to appeal an agency's refusal to provide the records to the attorney general, who had to issue a written opinion within 20 days.

Neither of the bills put an unreasonable burden on government agencies to provide documents, minutes, budgets.

The bills merely recognized that all government agencies need incentives not to stonewall on potentially embarrassing and politically sensitive material.

Davis, not yet a year into his administration, is setting a disturbing pattern. He also last month vetoed legislation that would have reopened the prisons to reportorial scrutiny.

The Davis administration is too young to have something to hide. Which makes his fear of public access all the more puzzling and troubling.

Either the governor believes in openness. Or he doesn't.