Inside Opinion » Public Records Act

Don’t chip away at public disclosure

TNT Editorial Board — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 01:45:40 +0000

This editorial will appear in Thursday’s print edition.

For public officials, laws requiring government transparency can be a royal pain. We get that.

Those laws mean they have to publicize meetings and allow in citizens who might be quarrelsome or reporters who might ask uncomfortable questions.

And those laws mean they have to respond to citizens and media representatives requesting public records – even requests that might be time-consuming or seem unreasonable.

But open government laws are on the books for a reason: Government that can operate in the shadows is not as responsive to the public it serves …

Open government needs a vigilant champion

TNT Editorial Board — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 01:45:02 +0000

This editorial will appear in Friday’s print edition.

When it comes to being as open with citizens as required by state law, government doesn’t always get it right.

One thing it is doing right: employing a person whose sole job is to increase openness whenever possible. That’s the open-government ombudsman in the state Attorney General’s Office, a post created in 2005 by former Attorney General Rob McKenna and held since 2007 by Tim Ford.

In 2008, the position was a casualty of budget cuts and became part time. New Attorney General Bob Ferguson ought to preserve it and return it …

A privilege mysteriously absent from the state constitution

TNT Editorial Board — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 00:41:06 +0000

This editorial will appear in Sunday’s print edition.

The Olympia-based Freedom Foundation is forcing an issue that needs to be forced: whether a governor can conceal documents by invoking an unwritten executive privilege that overrides the state’s Public Records Act.

The Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank, is suing Gov. Chris Gregoire to get six records of her office’s internal discussions about medical marijuana, the Alaskan Way Viaduct and salmon recovery efforts in the Columbia River Basin. The state Supreme Court heard the arguments last week.

Her attorneys say a governor needs “elbow room” to discuss sensitive questions with her …

A partial victory for disclosure in the R-71 case

Patrick O'Callahan — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 02:43:50 +0000

This editorial will appear in tomorrow’s print edition.

One legal skirmish has yet to be fought, but Washington won the major battle over its Public Records Act on Thursday.

With a crushing 8-1 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that there is no sweeping constitutional right to sign petitions in anonymity. The decision doesn’t force the release of the signatures that put Referendum 71 one the ballot last November – that’s the unfought skirmish – but it repudiates a claim that could have sealed all petitions on all issues, in Washington and everywhere else citizens enjoy the right to initiative …

A court’s baffling suppression of police reports

Patrick O'Callahan — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 02:45:43 +0000

This editorial will appear in tomorrow’s print edition.

Huh?

That’s how we reacted a few weeks ago to a judge’s order to block the release of law enforcement reports about the shooting of four Lakewood police officers last November. Such documents are routinely released – for very good reason – once officers have caught the suspects and wrapped up the investigation.

Susan Serko of the Pierce County Superior Court got the law wrong May 20 when she sided with defense lawyers representing the seven people accused of assisting cop-killer Maurice Clemmons. The attorneys persuaded her to stop the Pierce County …

State government clings to double standard

Kim Bradford — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 03:35:35 +0000

This editorial will appear in Sunday’s print edition.

Is it any wonder that city and county officials clamor for relief from open meetings and records laws when they see their counterparts in state government behave as they do?

State officials profess a belief in public disclosure. They’re just not sure it always applies to them.

Lawmakers in particular hold themselves apart from the state’s sunshine laws. They caucus in secret for any reason and insist that their correspondence is somehow constitutionally protected from public dissemination.

They also apparently reserve the right to skip public process in the …

Don’t raid public records fines

Kim Bradford — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 02:54:27 +0000

This editorial will appear in Wednesday’s print edition.

Lawmakers, under cover of helping the state archives, are seeking to shift the costs of illegal government secrecy to whistleblowers.

Identical bills in the House and Senate propose to redirect fines now paid to private citizens who prove public agencies erred in withholding records. The fines would go instead to the state archives account.

Requesters could plead with the court to reimburse their attorney fees and costs. But judges would not be bound to award those expenses as they are now.

The bills are certainly not the only …

Coming Wednesday: Public records fines

Kim Bradford — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:02:09 +0000

Here’s what we’re working on:

We love the state archives as much as anyone, but trying to fund it with public records fines is an insult to the very premise behind preservation of government documents. This legislation would make it far more difficult for citizens to get access to information that public agencies don’t want them to see.

Price of delay in releasing public records: $525,001

Patrick O'Callahan — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:08:03 +0000

This editorial will appear in tomorrow’s print edition.

Failing to disclose public records can get expensive, as the state keeps finding out.

The Department of Social and Health Services recently agreed to pay $525,001 to three girls who’d been abused for years by their state-licensed foster father, who was convicted of sex crimes two years ago and sentenced to four years in prison. The money wasn’t compensation for the abuse; it was for the agency’s violations of the state’s Public Records Act.

Their girls’ attorneys had sued DSHS for documents related to their $45 million claim for damages. The agency …

Public records law should cover judges

Cheryl Tucker — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:55:32 +0000

There’s just no polite way to put this: The state Supreme Court blew it.

In a 7-2 ruling last week, the court essentially decided that judicial administrative records are exempt from the state Public Records Act. The rationale: The courts aren’t “agencies” of government, or at least they’re not clearly defined as such in the act.

The case was City of Federal Way vs. Koenig, in which the city refused to release correspondence to and from embattled Municipal Court Judge Michael Morgan. In deciding against the records request, the Supreme Court is saying that the Municipal Court is not …