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Newly elected members of the Naples and Marco city councils have a problem.

Sunshine Laws prohibit them from talking amongst themselves about city business. I know it seems unrealistic, but the idea is to keep elected officials honest, their conversations public and their actions transparent.

With that in mind, our councilors-elect may need some advice and counsel from you and other citizens.

Ever willing to help, I convened my secret, anonymous team of expert advisers and gurus to counsel our new politicians. After a week of navel contemplation and reading tea leaves, including decaf, my panel offers these tips:

Learn what not to do, and how not to act, from watching the presidential candidates on TV or in public appearances. Some of those lessons:

-- Don’t show up at an unemployment center to commiserate with out-of-work people while wearing Gucci loafers, as Fred Thompson did.

-- Don’t doze off during a council meeting, as Bill Clinton did sitting behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s son, who was making a speech on Martin Luther King Day.

-- Remember that TV cameras are trained on you during council meetings. A close-up can be a killer if you happen to be smoothing your hair. Remember John Edwards primping on You Tube?

-- Don’t wink at people in public. John McCain has a left-eye winking habit that seems designed to indicate that he, the winker, and some other person, the winkee, share a private little secret. It’s annoying to everyone else.

-- When speaking out during council meetings, never try to imitate the accents or drawls or speech quirks of other members or people in the audience. Remember Hillary Clinton in that black church quoting an old freedom hymn, saying in a fractured black accent, “I don’t feel no ways tired. I come too far from where I started from…” Just don’t do that.

-- Don’t well up with tears, crocodile or otherwise. People will think your britches are too tight. Some overeager council colleague may jump up and give you a noogie or a wedgie, both of which are Sunshine Law violations.

-- Don’t ever say you voted for a project before you voted against it. That could prompt a recall petition.

-- Don’t claim to be the council member for “change.” Unless of course you mean spare change, which you are eager to share with citizens attending the meetings. Most of us interpret politicians urging “change” as meaning spending more of the taxpayers’ money. So please, keep the change.

-- Give Marco Island a dog park, so we can watch the canines’ interaction and maybe learn some civility from them.

On one thing all my double-secret panelists agree — beware of the Sunshine Laws. Say you pass another councilor in the supermarket. As he nears you, he sneezes.

Don’t say Gesundheit or Bless You, unless you first alert the media and the public to your communication. Why?

Overhearing your “Gesundheit,” some goof might mistake that as a code word known only to conspirators planning an invasion of Goodland.

In short, go easy, work hard and you’ll put to rest that famous quote of Aesop: “We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.”

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E-mail Don Farmer at don@donfarmer.com