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News For the Records, Kitsap Is Open Kitsap Sun: June 29, 2008 One measure of a local government is its openness to the public - the people it exists to serve. By that measure, Kitsap County is doing well, according to a state performance audit of the county's response to public records requests. Since the state's voters approved Initiative 276 in 1972, most records and communications by local and state governments have been legally open and available to the public. But sometimes, there's a difference between having the right to that access and actually achieving it. Read More Education key to openess Daily World: June 24, 2008 When Montesano resident Jay Sterling wants to know what the state's environmental agencies are doing with the county's lands, he files public records requests. But sometimes in order to get all of the documents, he has to file the requests with multiple state agences "and hope all of the letters match up." Locally, he often goes looking for public documents, only to be told they are nowhere to be found. Read More Auditor's Office records search up and running Bellingham Herald: June 23, 2008 The new Whatcom County Auditor's Office public records search is up and running and it's pretty darn neat. You can check it out, right here. No longer do you have to go down to the courthouse and grab that big notebook with all the little acronyms and codewords for the things you're looking up. Now you can easily search online for bunches of info. And there are security measures to protect people from identity theft. Social Security numbers are being redacted before the documents ever get online. But let's talk a bit about what you can't search for. Read More Should felons have access to public records? Yes and no Yakmia Herald: June 17, 2008 While we count Attorney General Rob McKenna as a strong ally in ongoing efforts at openness in government, we can offer only qualified support for his latest stand on the issue -- that felons who have not had their civil rights restored should not have the same rights to public records that other people do. Well, yes and no. Strangely enough, McKenna's brief finds open government advocates on the horns of a dilemma -- both agreeing with McKenna about abuse, but apprehensive about shutting access to records. There's no questioning that some inmates are abusing requests, but is the answer overreaching restrictions that could also shut off legitimate requests? We think not. Elimination of records access is a thicket one enters with great caution. Read More Requests good, not perfect, audit says Olympian: June 17, 2008 Getting copies of public records in Washington is a fairly efficient process, but it could be better, the state Auditor's Office said Monday. "No one was really lax, but some agencies did better than others," said Mindy Chambers, spokeswoman for state Auditor Brian Sonntag. Chambers was referring to a yearlong performance audit of 30 counties, cities and government agencies done by Sonntag's office. The audit judged how well they responded to the same 10 requests for public records ranging from travel vouchers to job descriptions to phone books. "It was pretty rigorous," Chris Cortines, deputy director of performance audits, told the Thurston County Commission. Read More Judge Rules for White House in E-Mail Controversy AP: June 16, 2008 A federal judge ruled Monday that a White House office that has records about millions of possibly missing e-mails does not have to make them public. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly says the Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, enabling the White House to maintain the secrecy of a lengthy internal paper trail about its problem-plagued e-mail system. The decision came in a lawsuit filed against the administration by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a private group that has been trying to find out the extent of the White House's e-mail problems for more than a year. Read More No easy answers in public records case Longview Daily News: June 15, 2008 Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna has always been a staunch advocate for open government in general and the state's Public Records Act in particular. Last year, he successfully promoted legislation aimed at strengthening the 36-year-old Public Records Act establishing a process to annually eliminate unnecessary exemptions to the law. So it was at first surprising - and a little troubling - to learn last week that McKenna had proposed to the state Court of Appeals that convicted felons who have not had their civil rights restored should not have the same rights as others to access public records. But once we'd read beyond the headlines, our initial misgivings subsided. The attorney general argues somewhat convincingly that what he proposes is neither radical nor damaging to the public records law. Read More Panel hears opinions on government sunshine Spokesman Review: June 11, 2008 A special state commission looking at ways to improve the law on government records ran Tuesday into a long-standing clash between confidentiality and the public's right to know. Government officials need to know that what they tell their attorneys will remain privileged, or they won't ask for or receive advice, government attorneys told members of a special meeting of the Public Records Exemptions Accountability Committee. Government officials sometimes use attorney-client privilege to hide things that the public has a right to know, members of the news media and open government advocates argued. The panel, often called the Sunshine Committee, didn't come to a conclusion on what it will suggest the Legislature do about exemptions for public records tied to discussions between government officials and their attorneys. But they heard a range of opinions, and even a bit of history. Read More County appoints records ombudsman; Bunney honored News Tribune: June 4, 2008 Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg has named Diane Braaten, his executive assistant, to be the county's public records ombudsman. Braaten will assist people seeking public records from the county. News of her appointment comes on the same day that County Councilman Shawn Bunney was honored for advocating for the ombudsman position and for work on other open government issues. The Washington Coalition for Open Government gave Bunney its Key Award at the County-City Building this afternoon. The coalition is a nonprofit, nonpartisan group backed my news media and other open government supporters. The News Tribune is a sponsor of the coalition. Read More Open government is the law -- and nobody is exempt Yakima Herald: June 2, 2008 Whenever talking about abuse of the open meetings and records laws and "sunshine" efforts to open things up, we like to quote that preamble because it's such a concise, direct capsulation of what the issue is all about. In our view, government officials can't be reminded enough of the fact that the people's business -- with a very few exceptions -- is to be conducted in full public view. Still, we'll watch with interest the activities of the Spokane-based nonprofit Center for Justice, which is pursuing a spate of lawsuits against local governments accused of illegal secrecy. It's another version of "sunshine" efforts -- to shine a little more light on things, especially open meetings issues. If there are violations of open meetings and legitimate access to public records, then by all means pursue litigation if that's the best way to stop them. But let's also insist on using a rifle, rather than a shotgun, in pursuing such suits. Read More Missteps on records detailed News Tribune: June 1, 2008 A court document shows that Lakewood made a series of mistakes in denying the requests of an open-records crusader over a three-year period starting in 2004. According to a Pierce County Superior Court document released this month, the city violated the state Public Records Act at least twice between December 2005 and September 2007. Lakewood made other missteps in some of its responses to David Koenig, who requested records about a Seattle police officer arrested in a Lakewood prostitution sting. At one point, the city mailed paperwork Koenig had requested to the wrong address, even though it had the correct one available, according to the court. Those are some of the details in the 15-page document signed by Pierce County Superior Court Judge Susan Serko, who ordered the city to pay more than $40,000 in fees and penalties to Koenig in April. Read More County Settles Lawsuit Over Jail Video for $125,000 Kitsap Sun: May 30, 2008 Kitsap County has agreed to pay $125,000 to a Bremerton man to settle a lawsuit that alleged violations of the state's public records act. While housed in the Kitsap County Corrections Center in September 2006, Jeffery McKee, 51, requested all records involving his case since he'd been booked into jail that June. He was charged with delivery of methamphetamine. He was provided copies of 130 documents by the county, but McKee claimed he did not receive specific records, including videos of him when he was placed in a "crisis cell," where inmates who get out of control are typically placed. He sent repeated requests for the video evidence of his treatment in the cell, followed by a request to the county's administrative services department, over the course of the next year Read More Project polices government Spokesman Review: May 27, 2008 Call them Washington's newest sheriffs of "sunshine." After nearly a decade of public-interest law focused mainly in the Spokane area, the nonprofit Center for Justice has launched a statewide campaign targeting illegal secrecy in government. The group's first volley of lawsuits - against five local governments accused of open-meetings law violations - has generated three settlements, along with hurrahs from open-government activists across the political spectrum. Director Breean Beggs promises there will be more: "What we're really playing for is to change the culture of open records and meetings." Some local government leaders, though, say the idea hits a sour note. Read More Seattle: last to disclose Seattle Times: May 23, 2008 Seattle officials should embrace the opportunity presented by a state performance audit that shows the city was not as responsive as it could be to requests for public information. OK, so the city ranked dead last in the state auditor's recent report on how quickly and thoroughly 30 municipal governments - among them Tacoma, Bellevue and Spokane Valley - responded to requests.But the role of performance audits, as authorized by Initiative 900, is to provide feedback on an agency's practices. Ideally, the information helps them improve. In a response to the draft audit, Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis noted that the city's 53 "public disclosure officers" handling of more than 5,300 disclosure requests attests to the city's responsiveness. That's commendable, but comparisons matter and Seattle's responsiveness was deemed worse than all other municipal governments. Read More Dem. House Majority Leader Won't Endorse Dem. Att'y Gen. Candidate--Open Gov't Cited OG Blog: May 22, 2008 Holy Toledo. Democratic House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler says she won't "now or ever" endorse Democratic Attorney General candidate John Ladenburg. Why? The reason Kessler describes in this story from The (Aberdeen) Daily World is Ladenburg's opposition to the open-meetings taping bill Kessler worked on with incumbent--Republican--Attorney General Rob McKenna. "[Kessler] is concerned that Ladenburg has been outspoken about legislation she and McKenna championed this year to force local governments to record their executive sessions. The recordings would only be provided to a judge if questions arise that the government bodies are violating the state's open public meetings law. Read More Sunnyside council negotiating with top city manager pick, but not saying who it is Yakima Herald: May 21, 2008 Officials are still negotiating with a candidate for city manager and no one is saying who he is. A private meeting of Sunnyside City Council members Tuesday yielded no contract for the council's top pick. Until they have one, "we cannot divulge" the choice, Mayor Paul Garcia said. However, they have one, and that may violate the state's open government laws. Sunnyside has been without a regular city manager since September, when Bob Stockwell resigned. Read More County, Vancouver praised in audits Columbian: May 21, 2008 Washington state voters wisely decided through Initiative 276 in 1972 to require public disclosure of most government records. Although the original 10 exemptions have grown to more than 300 (the Sunshine Committee created by the Legislature last year is reviewing those 300 and looking for ones to expunge), the state's public records act continues to keep our governments transparent. Read More Audit faults Seattle's response to requests Seattle Times: May 20, 2008 A state audit found 30 public agencies, from King County to the city of Yakima, were mostly cooperative and timely in responding to requests for records they must disclose by law - with one notable exception. The city of Seattle scored worse than any other government agency and was "nonresponsive" to 80 percent of the public-records requests received under the audit, released Monday. City officials dispute the findings, saying the methods used by State Auditor Brian Sonntag were flawed. A spokeswoman for Sonntag defended the audit as a valid "snapshot in time" but said it would be unfair to make too much of the city's low score. "Overall, we found the folks are doing a pretty good job. To say the city of Seattle is just terrible is probably not fair," said Mindy Chambers. Read More Auditor: Records-request audit is done Olympian: May 19, 2008 The state Auditor's Office has released its final report on a sampling of public-records responses by 10 state agencies, 10 cities and 10 counties. It's a nearly 180-page document. Here's a link to a story we did on the draft audit report issued in late March, focusing on Thurston County, the lone local government in South Sound that was examined. The final report findings were overall positive but voiced concerns such as these: Here's a snippet from the conclusions: Our audit work revealed that, by and large, most of the 30 entities we audited are providing good customer service in responding to public records requests. We tested the entities' performance by submitting 10 public records requests to each entity like a citizen would and identified some trouble spots in which entities need training on the Public Records Act; have problems tracking requests; or are unable to receive them due to e-mail filters or other issues with their mail systems. Read More Public records performance audit released WPC Blog: May 19, 2008 The State Auditor today officially released a performance audit on government compliance with the Public Records Act. So what does public records compliance have to do with government spending and efficiency? Consider some of the recent taxpayer payouts for government violations of the law: "In recent years, court cases in which state agencies and local governments have been assessed fines and penalties have been specifically related to the entities' improperly withholding public records and/or delaying release of the records. We did not identify litigation that was based on entities' practices other than improper denials or excessive delays. In addition to penalties, attorneys' fees, and costs awarded by the court, the entity also bears it own legal costs of the litigation. Accordingly, minor court awards can be expensive if the legal costs associated with the litigation are considered as well. Examples of recent lawsuits include . . ." Read More State Auditor's Public Records Performance Audit Is Out OG Blog: May 19, 2008 The State Auditor's Office conducted an amazing and thorough performance audit of 30 state and local agencies of varying sizes across the state to assess their compliance with the Public Records Act. The Auditor's Office produced this very nice report today. Holy smokes. You should read this. It describes individual agencies' performance but also discusses trends, statistics, and patterns. Quite a few journalists read og-blog. We humbly suggest to our media readers that this audit report is chock full of news stories. The agencies audited are all over state so there's plenty of local interest for a newspaper in just about every corner of the state. Read More Ladenburg: Recording Executive Sessions Requires Too Much Technology OG Blog: May 19, 2008 John Ladenburg is running for Attorney General against the incumbent, Rob McKenna. Running against a popular incumbent means coming up with some creative issues separating you from the incumbent. McKenna supported the bill to require the recording of executive sessions. Ladenburg doesn't. Here's a portion of a story from The (Vancouver) Columbian: "[Ladenburg] parts ways with McKenna on one issue the incumbent championed in the 2008 session - requiring local governments to tape their executive sessions to provide backup evidence if they are accused of violating the state's open public meetings law. The bill, hotly opposed by many legislators from both parties, failed to pass, and Ladenburg said it 'would not be a priority for me.' For one thing, he said, it would be expensive to implement, because a simple tape recorder cannot distinguish among voices. 'The superior courts tried it, but it didn't work,' he said. 'The technology required is akin to studio technology.' If an audio tape is going to be used as evidence, he said, 'You'd better know who said it and when.'" Read More Learning to Protect Open Government Kitsap Sun: May 19, 2008 In 1972, the Washington state's voters passed Initiative 276 with a landslide 72 percent majority. Passage of I-276 resulted in creation of the Public Disclosure Act, a sweeping "sunshine" law that codified the public's right to know about its government. One year earlier, the Legislature passed the Open Public Meetings Act, that similarly safeguarded the public's right to attend meetings of its government bodies. But more than three decades later, those rights have been eroded by court rulings and by limitations imposed by the Legislature, particularly regarding access to public records. When I-276 passed in 1972, there were only 10 exemptions to disclosure of public documents. Now, there are more than 300. Read More Disclosure law's first test goes to Olympia activist Olympian: May 16, 2008 The state Court of Appeals this week ruled in favor of Olympia activist Arthur West in a public-records-disclosure dispute. West sought billing records for attorney Mike Patterson, formerly of the Seattle law firm Lee, Smart, Cook, Martin and Patterson, for defending the county in a sexual-discrimination case brought by three former county prosecutors, Audrey Broyles, Vonda Sargent and Susan Sackett-DanPullo. The county, which lost the case, and the Washington Counties Risk Pool last year disclosed legal invoice records to The Olympian that brought the total cost to Thurston County to more than $6.2 million. The totals included both a $1.52 million jury and $1.45 million attorney fees awards after a three-week trial in November 2006. Read More News Tribune seeks quick ruling on plea for documents on Federal Way judge News Tribune: May 15, 2008 After striking out with the state Supreme Court, The News Tribune has asked the state Court of Appeals to speed up its review of a case involving Federal Way Municipal Court Judge Michael Morgan. The newspaper filed the motion Tuesday after the Supreme Court denied The News Tribune's request to take up and decide the Morgan case in an expedited manner. Morgan is trying to block the release of investigative documents about his role in fostering an allegedly hostile workplace. He contends they're protected by attorney-client privilege. Supreme Court deputy clerk Susan Carlson said Friday that the newspaper's request to transfer the case was premature. She said the request would be a better candidate for consideration after opening briefs are filed in the Court of Appeals. Read More 'Pandering to a public perception that there should be openness in government' News Tribune: May 14, 2008 It sounds like the Sunshine Committee, the group studying whether all of the exemptions to Washington state's public records law are necessary, had a spirited meeting Tuesday. State Sen. Pam Roach and the committee chairman, Seattle city attorney Tom Carr, tangled. And farm industry representatives strongly objected to proposals to lift the exemptions that keep agricultural data secret. Check out this gem by Jim Halstrom of the Washington State Horticultural Association, which represents tree fruit growers and shippers. "You're subjecting my farmers' information to scrutiny by the public," without showing there's a problem, said Halstrom. He called the proposal "ludicrous" and said the committee is just "a cynical political exercise pandering to a public perception that there should be openness in government." Yeah, read that quote again. Read More Court says Thurston County must pay on records delay Olympian: May 14, 2008 Open-government advocates hailed yesterday's court of appeals ruling that favored local activist and legal gadfly Arthur West in a battle for Thurston County lawyer-fee records. It looks like the county will pay for having delayed release of legal cost information related to the sexual discrimination case that went to trial against the Prosecuting Attorney's Office. The opening lines of the court's unanimous, 3-0 decision go this way . . . Read More Lobbyists cloud 'Sunshine' panel Spokesman Review: May 14, 2008 A task force trying to pare down the long list of things that government officials are allowed to keep confidential ran into a buzz saw Tuesday, as agricultural lobbyists railed against a proposal to disclose more farm-related data. And that was before one member of the group accused the others of breaking the open-meetings law and threatened to quit. Washington's "Sunshine Committee," made up of attorneys, lawmakers, journalists and others, has struggled since January to agree on changes to recommend to the Legislature. The group is supposed to be evaluating the hundreds of exemptions to the state's Public Disclosure Law. But even the things that once seemed like easy pickings - such as a much-mocked protection for the growing records of American ginseng farmers - are stirring up fierce resistance from industry lobbyists and privacy advocates. Read More Ridgefield settles sunshine lawsuit Columbian: May 10, 2008 The city of Ridgefield has agreed to pay more than $7,000 to settle a lawsuit that was filed over the city's violations of the state's Open Public Meetings Act. The settlement was approved Thursday by the Ridgefield City Council. The city was one of five public agencies sued statewide in March by the Center for Justice, a nonprofit law firm in Spokane. The lawsuits were filed to coincide with Sunshine Week, a national initiative to remind the public that their government's leaders should not be conducting business in the dark. Read More Public Records Show ... DSHS Didn't Check on Girl onSuicide Watch OG Blog: May 8, 2008 KING 5 has this story about allegations that a 15-year old girl in DSHS care and under a suicide watch was left unattended for 11 hours. She hanged herself. KING 5 says DSHS regulations required it to check in on her every five minutes and that DSHS staff lied about doing it. How was KING 5 able to report this story? You guessed it: "According to internal documents obtained by the KING 5 Investigators, two counselors filled out logs saying the checks had been made." Read More News groups support BIAW in destroyed email suit Olympian: May 8, 2008 The state's building industry and Northwest newspapers have met again in a common cause: open government and a lawsuit that might get a hearing by the state Supreme Court. Then again, it might not. Three news organizations and an environmental journalists' group joined forces to submit a friend of court brief this week on behalf of the Building Industry Association of Washington. It asks the high court to take the case on review and presumably set the record straight. At issue: a Thurston County judge's ruling last year on destroyed government emails that could have great repercussions, according to the news groups' brief. Read More Newspaper asks state Supreme Court for ruling inFederal Way judges case News Tribune: May 8, 2008 The News Tribune asked the state Supreme Court on Thursday to decide the case of a Federal Way judge who is trying to block the release of documents about his role in fostering an allegedly hostile workplace. In requesting an expedited ruling, lawyers for the newspaper argue the documents should be made public before Municipal Court Judge Michael Morgan can seek re-election in fall 2009. "The public needs to know of the facts underlying this case by that time so that the public can make a knowledgeable decision during the fall 2009 elections," the newspaper's court filing states. Morgan's attorney, John Schochet, said Thursday that he hadn't had time to decide whether to oppose the newspaper's motion. But he said the key issue in the case is the independence of the judicial branch. Read More Accountability via lawsuit doesn't work Columbian: May 2, 2008 We all agree accountability is vital in our state. There are many proven ways to hold government accountable, such as a robust Open Public Records Act and a strong Open Public Meetings Act, where citizens and the media can observe and participate in improving government. Accountability is also accomplished through a solid personnel system where unacceptable conduct by employees can be disciplined quickly. Lawsuits cannot provide this kind of immediate accountability, particularly since cases can be filed up to three years after an incident and take many more years to resolve after that. Read More All invited to interviews with superintendent candidates News Tribune: April 30, 2008 Coming down on the side of transparency, the Auburn School Board has dropped its plan to invite only a select group of residents into closed-door interviews with candidates for district superintendent. The board has decided to do all preliminary interviews in a pair of sessions that are open to the public, scheduled for next week. The previously handpicked panel of community members also will attend both meetings. Only board members may ask questions. Read More Auburn did right by public in rethinking meeting News Tribune: April 30, 2008 The Auburn School Board made the right choice Monday in deciding to let the law and its community, not the school district's consultant, guide the search for a new school superintendent. The board dropped a plan to meet behind closed doors with a group of community members appointed to assist the board in evaluating superintendent candidates. While the board's intent - to get broader input on an important decision - was commendable, its proposed execution was fundamentally flawed. Read More County praised on records requests Bellingham Herald: April 24, 2008 An undercover study by the State Auditor's Office gave Whatcom County government high marks for responding to public records requests, according to a draft report from the agency. The state report says that Whatcom County had good response times to nearly every records request, has an exemplary Web site for information on such requests, and beats most averages on response times. The state report looked at the 10 largest cities, counties and state agencies in Washington, finding that most entities complied within reasonable time frames and followed most laws. But the report also showed that some agencies often did unnecessary shuffling of public records requests through the bureaucracy. Read More Ending Translucent Government: Putting Government Data Online Mercatus on Policy: April 23, 2008 The federal government makes an overwhelming amount of data publicly available each year. Laws ranging from the Administrative Procedure Act to the Paperwork Reduction Act require these disclosures in the name of transparency and accountability. However, the data is often only nominally available to the public. First, much government data is not available online or even in electronic format. Second, the data that can be found online is often not available in an easily accessible or searchable format. If the government made information public online in standard open formats, the millions of Americans online could help ensure the transparency and accountability that is the reason for making information public in the first place. Read More Idaho officials can skirt law by claiming ignorance Spokesman Review: April 25, 2008 For Idaho public officials, ignorance is bliss. The state Supreme Court has ruled that the word "knowingly" in Idaho statute means the burden is on prosecutors to prove a public official was aware of the state's open meeting law before breaking it. And because of that, says Attorney General Lawrence Wasden, it is virtually impossible to impose fines on scofflaws. Wasden ran into that technicality while investigating a complaint from The Spokesman-Review that the state Board of Education on Dec. 6 improperly excluded the public by calling an executive session to discuss the possibility of canceling the Idaho Standard Achievement Test for ninth-graders. Read More Transparency meeting with Governor's office WPC Blog: April 24, 2008 Hoping to build on the successful adoption of WPC's recommendation to create a searchable budget website this year (SB 6818), I had the opportunity to meet with the Governor's Chief of Staff and the Director of the Department of Information Services yesterday on ways to improve state agency website transparency. The meeting was set up on behalf of the Washington Coalition for Open Government (WCOG). WPC is a member of WCOG and I have the privilege of serving as Treasurer of WCOG. Along with other representatives of WCOG, I encouraged the Governor's office to take advantage of tools offered by search engine companies (such as Microsoft and Google), to help improve the accessibility of information on government websites. Read More Officials question cost, scope of e-mail storage measure Government Executive: April 24, 2008 A House bill to force the White House and federal agencies to improve e-mail retention received general support Wednesday from the National Archives, GAO and public advocacy groups, but the organizations diverged on whether the measure is too strong or toothless. Many experts agreed that with executive branch officials increasingly making decisions through online collaboration, an outdated hodgepodge of paper-based systems that agencies use to keep key e-mails threatens the ability of historians to reconstruct important deliberations. How aggressively Congress should push remains in question. Read More Agencies not complying with record preservation policies Nextgov.com: April 24, 2008 Agencies are not preserving e-mail records properly because of depleted staffs, an overwhelming volume of messages, and a reliance on an archaic print-and-file storing process, industry and government representatives told a congressional panel on Wednesday. "Records management in general is afforded low priority across government," Linda Koontz, director of information management issues at the Government Accountability Office, told a hearing of the House Information Policy, Census and National Archives Subcommittee. "Without a mandate we won't get too far." At the hearing, Koontz released preliminary results from an ongoing GAO study of how four agencies managed e-mail and electronic records. Read More Open meeting law changes urged Spokesman Review: April 23, 2008 Lawmakers need to revamp Idaho's open meeting law to remove ambiguities that make it difficult to enforce, state Attorney General Lawrence Wasden said. "We need to have a serious discussion with the interested parties," Wasden said. "We believe that legislation is necessary to resolve some of these issues." The problem became apparent in February when Wasden concluded that the state Board of Education may have violated the open meeting law on Dec. 6 by going into executive session. Read More Open government forum an opportunity to learn Tri-City Herald: April 22, 2008 Nothing gets us on our high horse quicker than a violation of the state's open government laws. If we're a little rabid about it, but it's only because the law recognizes a fundamental truth about the American way. In a nutshell, government belongs to the people it serves. Being denied access to what's ours can be infuriating. Even worse, it's bad for democracy. No doubt, most violations occur because of misunderstandings about state laws covering public meetings and public records. People don't run for city council or volunteer for the cemetery board because they're trying to undermine our way of life. Read More Open records laws are for citizens, too News Tribune: April 22, 2008 Who'd have known there was a living to be made merely asking cities to obey the law? David Koenig of Federal Way seems to be doing precisely that. Earlier this month, a Pierce County Superior Court judge ordered the City of Lakewood to pay Koenig $40,000 for denying him public records relating to the arrest of a police officer in a prostitution sting. This is the latest of several awards, all for being denied documents he was entitled to under the state's open records laws. Koenig's biggest take was $83,500 from the City of Des Moines. In that case, the city had refused to turn over documents dealing with the rape of his daughter, who was living with her mother and stepfather. Read More Audit finds Tacoma School Board violated open meetings law News Tribune: April 22, 2008 An annual state audit has found the Tacoma School Board violated the state's open meetings law when it made decisions in nonpublic executive sessions. The audit, released Monday, cited two instances from last year when it said the board ran afoul of the requirement that a final action must be made in open session. Read More Survey finds few roadblocks for people seeking public records News Tribune: April 21, 2008 Bureaucracy is the biggest obstacle citizens face in their efforts to obtain public records, according to a new report by the state auditor's office. The survey of the state's 10 largest cities, counties and government agencies found high levels of overall compliance with public disclosure requests - but some entities gave citizens the runaround, sending them from one department to another. The City of Seattle was the worst offender in that respect, passing requesters to multiple departments in seven of 10 cases. Read More Public Records Act Classes OG-Blog: April 21, 2008 Greg Overstreet of Allied Law Group will be offering practical and intensive classes on the Public Records Act. The classes will be statewide this spring and summer. Contact Greg to suggest a class in your area. The first class is on May 13, 2008 in Olympia. Requestors and agencies need different information from a class. The classes reflect this by breaking into two separate half-day sessions. The first is for public records requestors (regular citizens, journalists, activists, trade associations, plaintiff's attorneys) emphasizing how to get records. The second session is for state and local government agencies emphasizing how to comply with the Act. Read More Federal Way man has won thousands in public records lawsuits News Tribune: April 21, 2008 A judge has ordered the City of Lakewood to pay a Federal Way man more than $40,000 for improperly denying him public records about the arrest of a cop in a prostitution sting. The city must pay David Koenig penalties and attorney fees, Judge Susan Serko ruled in Pierce County Superior Court. The judge's written order is not yet available, but she decided on the penalties April 11, according to attorneys on both sides. Read More The state sent warning letters to thousands of people, but it won't tell us who got them News Tribune: April 18, 2008 Last year, the state Department of Ecology sent warning letters to some 20,000 people. But the department refuses to give us the list of who got those letters. That doesn't seem right, does it? Here's the issue: The Department of Ecology encourages the public to report people who litter. You may have seen the ads promoting the "Litter And It Will Hurt" campaign. You can call a hotline - 866-LITTER-1 (548-8371) - or fill out a form on the agency's Web site. Basically, if you see someone toss a cigarette butt (or anything else) out of a window, you note the vehicle license plate, description of the vehicle, date and time and location. Read More Documents to stay sealed in Federal Way court case News Tribune: April 16, 2008 A Federal Way judge will get more time to block release of documents about his oversight of the Municipal Court and his role in fostering a work environment being investigated as hostile. On Tuesday, a state appeals court commissioner put on hold a King County judge's ruling, which had declared that records and e-mails involving Federal Way Municipal Judge Michael Morgan could be released to The News Tribune. Next up: the state Court of Appeals, which isn't expected to rule for 12 to 18 months. That's the typical time it takes a case to work its way through the appellate court, although cases can be expedited. Read More Fine demonstrates need for open records Olympian: April 13, 2008 A whistle-blower tip has led to a $1.25 million fine against Puget Sound Energy for fraudulent natural gas pipeline inspection records. The fine is the largest penalty ever imposed by the state on a natural gas distribution company. The fine helps make the case why pipeline records should remain open to public inspection - an issue the pipeline industry has resisted in the state Legislature and in the courts. Read More Secrecy spreads like fire in the Santa Ana winds Seattle Times: April 10, 2008 Press Here for a cautionary tale about abuse of public records secrecy in the OC. The Orange County Register discovered there are 996,716 vehicles registered to California motorists who are affiliated with 1,800 state and local agencies and who are allowed to hide their home addresses under a Confidential Records Program. The Register said its investigation "has found that the program, designed 30 years ago to protect police from criminals, has been expanded to cover hundreds of thousands of public employees - from police dispatchers to museum guards - who face little threat from the public. Their spouses and children can get the plates, too." Read More County's resistance to audit is regretful Olympian: April 10, 2008 Remember last fall when Thurston County Commissioner Diane Oberquell raised a stink over a government performance audit? State auditors asked for a series of public records to test how local government officials would respond to the general public making similar requests for public records. It was, as Auditor Brian Sonntag said, a test of government transparency and accountability to citizens. Oberquell went ballistic, calling the audit a money-wasting "sting." She said requests for a job description of the information technology staff member, travel records from the sheriff's office and the phone records of chief administrative officer Don Krupp were a waste of money. Oberquell was wrong. It was a legitimate request for public records and a legitimate test of government transparency at Thurston County. Read More Secrecy not as necessary as many school boards think News Tribune: April 10, 2008 The Clover Park school board's decision to withhold the names of its superintendent semifinalists is, admittedly, the traditional model for superintendent searches. It might be time to rethink tradition. School board directors have tended to assume that they have to keep a wrap on such decisions if they want to attract the best and the brightest. But that was before Tacoma embarked on its latest search for a school district CEO and challenged the conventional wisdom of secrecy. Now Tacoma is looking a lot like the kid in the front row who embarrassed the rest of the class by getting the answer right. Read More Kessler defends bill to tape secret meetings in talk before Port Angeles chamber Peninsula Daily News: April 8, 2008 State Rep. Lynn Kessler vowed Monday to bring back her bill allowing audiotaping of government agencies' executive sessions "again and again and again." Her promise during a speaking engagement before the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce was made despite opposition from a Clallam County commissioner and Port Angeles city councilwoman. Kessler, D-Hoquiam and one of three North Olympic Peninsula state lawmakers, was addressing the chamber's weekly luncheon meeting at the Port Angeles CrabHouse Restaurant. Read More Mediocre openness Spokesman Review: April 6, 2008 At first glance, an 11-month performance audit suggests Washington's cities, counties and state agencies respond pretty well to requests for public records. But the test to which the state Auditor's Office put 30 selected entities was hardly rigorous. From November 2006 through September 2007, people working for the office submitted 10 records requests each to 10 cities, 10 counties and 10 state agencies. The requests were for documents that were likely to exist at the specified office, were readily identifiable and posed no great burden to retrieve. As long as replies were "close to being responsive to the request," they were deemed satisfactory. Read More Lawyer vies to replace judge Olympian: April 5, 2008 Open government is likely to rear its head in a judicial race for the Court of Appeals that pits former builders' lawyer Tim Ford of Olympia against two-term Judge Joyce "Robin" Hunt of Bainbridge Island. Ford is a public-records advocate in the office of Attorney General Rob McKenna and has a long background in challenging governments for access to their records - including lawsuits during his employment by the Building Industry Association of Washington early this decade. "Obviously I feel passionate about the open government laws. That's not the only reason I'm running," said Ford, 43. He said he also believes in accountability and ensuring that individuals, businesses, public agencies and even courts follow the law. Read More Executive sessions in Whoville... Spokesman Review: April 3, 2008 I can't find a video clip of this anywhere, but there's a great scene in the new movie "Horton Hears a Who" that perfectly sums up the concerns that open-government advocates have over executive sessions by elected officials. In the Dr. Seuss-written tale (I have a 2 1/2-year old), a mayor learned of a disaster looming over blissful Whoville. But when he urged the city council meeting to cancel a big event in favor of rushing to the safety of underground storehouses, an appalled city councilman promptly reached for a switch. A huge glass jar plopped down over the council and the mayor. The crowd of citizens could hear nothing. Read More Education, communication sorely needed for members Yakima Herald: April 3, 2008 Results of the November mayoral election in Granger appear to have showcased deep rifts in the community, the latest manifestation being an uproar over a canceled council meeting. We'd suggest that before things get buried under a pile of suspicion and suspected ulterior motives, Granger officials call for some objective help in getting their city government running smoothly. As we reported earlier, some residents were upset that mayor pro-tem Donna Shipman attempted to hold a meeting March 18 that earlier had been canceled by Mayor Ramona Fonseca. Shipman contends that Fonseca didn't legally cancel the meeting, which requires a vote by the City Council and adds the meeting was only a study session anyway -- where business is discussed but no action taken. Read More Judge files to block release of investigative report on court Tacoma News Tribune: April 3, 2008 Federal Way Municipal Court Judge Michael Morgan has filed an appeal to block the release of a report investigating allegations of a hostile workplace in the city's Municipal Court. Morgan also asked the state Court of Appeals on Tuesday to stay the release of the report before his appeal is decided, said John Schochet, an attorney for Morgan. The appeal was filed March 27. Morgan also has requested that two other documents - e-mails from him to a court staff member and City Attorney Pat Richardson - be sealed. King County Superior Court Judge Kimberley Prochnau ruled March 19 that the investigative report can be released to The News Tribune because it was not subject to attorney-client privilege. Read More Records responses tested Spokesman Review: April 2, 2008 Not perfect, but not bad. After nearly a year of mystery-shopper testing, that's how the state auditor's office rated the responsiveness of most government officials to people seeking public records. "Generally I think people did fairly well," said Mindy Chambers, a spokeswoman for state Auditor Brian Sonntag. Spokane County and the city of Spokane Valley got high marks for fast and thorough responses in most cases, according to a draft copy of the report obtained Tuesday. Still, there were numerous cases around the state in which people received little or no information. Sometimes responses took weeks. Read More Effort to shine more light on government is good for public Union-Bulletin: April 2, 2008 When government officials are doing business, they should always keep in mind that they are doing the people's business. And that's why most government records are public record. The people have a right to know what their government is doing. Washington state has been a leader in open government. Back in 1972, voters approved an open government law that ensured the people would have access to records and other public documents. The voters granted only 10 exemptions to the law. But over the past 36 years the number of exemptions has grown to more than 300. And, as a result, too much of what state and local governments do is being done in secret. Read More Thurston shows well in draft audit Olympian: April 2, 2008 The state auditor's spot check of state, city and county governments shows some are honoring public-records requests better than others. A draft report from a months-long audit of government performance shows a great range - from the top timeliness and responsiveness by the state Department of General Administration to the slower, spottier responses by Seattle, Yakima County and the state Department of Corrections. Officials with Thurston County, the lone South Sound government examined, insisted their responses were good. By some measures, the county fell into the middle of the pack, but it also got noticed for examples of several "best practices." Read More City of Puyallup committed to transparency Tacoma News Tribune: April 2, 2008 Recently the City of Puyallup was criticized for taking excessive time to process requests for public documents. I am pleased to report that those concerns have been acted upon. City staff recently streamlined internal procedures to speed up turn-around time when processing public requests for public documents. My purpose in responding is not to refute any of the criticism but to state unequivocally that the Puyallup City Council and city staff are committed to transparency in city government. Read More Governor signs Washington Policy Center proposal for searchable budget website WPC: April 1, 2008 Governor Christine Gregoire signed into law today SB 6818 (Promoting transparency in state expenditures). The bill is based on Washington Policy Center's (WPC) recommendation for the state to adopt a searchable budget website. It passed the legislature unanimously. "We are pleased to see state officials make improving citizen access to details on state spending a priority by adopting this reform," said Jason Mercier, director of WPC's Center Government Reform. "The state's new searchable budget website will help connect taxpayers with the spending decisions being made on their behalf by shining a light on what is being purchased and accomplished with their tax dollars." Legislative supporters of increased budget transparency are also pleased to see this reform enacted. Read More State Auditor's Performance Audit on Public Records Compliance OG Blog: April 1, 2008 Whoa. This is NOT an April Fool's joke. Here is a draft of the State Auditor's Office performance audit of 30 state and local government agencies' Public Records Act compliance. Some agencies did very well. Some did OK. Other agencies did horribly. It is amazing to see the different responses to the same requests from various agencies. The report suggests concrete ways agencies can improve their public records performance. The report is a blueprint for how to fix many of the disclosure problems in the state. Read More County rates poorly in state public records audit Yakima Herald: April 1, 2008 According to a draft version of the audit report, the county adequately responded to five out of 10 anonymous requests for public records. The city of Yakima, by contrast, scored a perfect 10 out of 10. County officials on Monday strongly disputed the report's findings, saying the county filled all of the requests as directed under law. "We should be 10 out of 10 as well," said Terry Austin, chief civil deputy prosecuting attorney for the county. Read More Sunshine Committee has hardest work ahead of it Tacoma News Tribune: April 1, 2008 Two down, 298-plus to go. The state's new Sunshine Committee is off to a very modest start in its mission to trim the long list of government records that can be kept secret. In its first two recommendations, the committee wants the Legislature to drop public disclosure exemptions that conceal the names of applicants for top government jobs and to give the public access to more information about investigations into child deaths. Read More Winter sunshine's hard to find in Olympia... Spokesman Review: March 31, 2008 After months of work, the state's "Sunshine Committee" this week recommended that finalists for government jobs should be made public and that more information should be released from investigations into child deaths. It's been slow going for the committee, a mix of attorneys, lawmakers, journalists and community members. (Among the latter: Spokane's Candy Jackson.) They're supposed to be looking at the more than 400 exemptions that have been created to the state's public records act, which says that citizens have a right to see what government is doing. But even the silly-seeming exemptions (secrecy for growers of American ginseng? Really?) have proven unexpectedly nuanced and complex. Read More City official berates man Tacoma News Tribune: March 31, 2008 An Eatonville councilman shouted repeated profanities at a citizen journalist and demanded that he stop recording at a public meeting earlier this month, despite a state law permitting such recordings. Councilman and former Mayor Bruce Rath said he regrets using the foul language, and other leaders said they didn't agree with it. But council members and the current mayor said there was no infringement of state open meetings laws because the encounter took place before the meeting formally started. Read More Sunshine Committee's first recommendations are good ones EFF Blog: March 26, 2008 For the first time since its creation last August, the "Sunshine Committee" completed a substantive recommendation to the legislature in a meeting aired on TVW yesterday. For the past seven months the committee has wrangled with questions like "what is an exemption," "what is a public record," and "does anyone even know how many exemptions there are?" But in the midst of those foundational questions it has been making slow progress in reviewing actual exemptions. Yesterday the committee voted to recommend limiting a very broad exemption to child-death investigation records and an exemption preventing citizens from finding out who is applying for management-level government jobs until after a hire is made. Read More Knowledge is power; power to the people Everett Herald: March 28, 2008 By the time state lawmakers convene again next year, their results will be under the scrutiny of a new set of eyes -- yours. If you care to find out how they're spending your tax money, that is. In a welcome boost for government accountability, the Legislature unanimously approved the creation of a new Web resource that will allow citizens to quickly and intuitively access detailed, understandable information on state spending and taxes. Much of that information is already available on the Web, but it's hard to find. And once you find it, good luck making sense of it. The idea of this new site is to bring it all together in one user-friendly place where average taxpayers can see where their money is going. Read More Port commissioners must be held accountable Longview Daily News: March 20, 2008 Port of Longview commissioners violated the state's open meetings law last May, when they chose Roger Allen to replace former Commissioner Larry Larson. They winnowed applicants to two and drew Allen's name from a hat in executive session. The vote Commissioner Dan Buell and then-Commissioner Walt Barham later took in public had been determined behind closed doors. The Daily News believes the port should be held accountable for this action and that's why the newspaper has joined a lawsuit filed on behalf of the Spokane-based public interest group Center for Justice. The suit seeks $100 fines from each of the two commissioners, payment of the plaintiff's legal fees and a court injunction prohibiting future violations of the Open Meetings Act. Read More Officials must heed call for openness Olympian: March 20, 2008 If you listen to government officials, most will tell you that they follow the law and believe in openness and transparency. Sometimes the record shows differently. The Center for Justice, a Spokane-based public interest group and the Allied Law Group, an Olympia and Seattle law firm specializing in open-government issues, filed multiple lawsuits Monday accusing five agencies of violating the state's public meetings law. The lawsuits were timed to coincide with Sunshine Week, a national campaign that stretches from last Sunday to this Saturday. Read More Secrecy not a joke Spokesman Review: March 20, 2008 Did you hear the one about the government executive who started a new job and four days later the board voted to hire him? Well, it's no joke and it happened right here in River City. The peculiar hiring of William Dameworth in 2006 as director of the Spokane Regional Clean Air Agency is but one example of the secret machinations that occur behind closed government doors. Four other cases are being targeted by Spokane's Center for Justice and two West Side attorneys in an attempt to spread the word about serial violations of the state's open meetings laws. Read More Public sees government secrecy on the rise Seattle Times: March 20, 2008 How secretive is government? Plenty and increasingly, according to a new public survey conducted in connection with Sunshine Week. Three quarters of the respondents said they think the federal government is very or somewhat secretive. That's up from 62 percent in 2006. Local government fared a lot better, with 56 percent saying their local government is very or somewhat open. In contrast, 40 percent said local government is very or somewhat secretive, but that is up from 34 percent just last year. Read More City attorney pits public records, police Seattle PI: March 20, 2008 Is our government so poor it can't afford to do a good job providing public records to.... the public? The same public that passed the Public Records Law by initiative in 1972? That seemed to be what Seattle City Attorney Tom Carr was suggesting at a lunchtime panel discussion put on by the Washington Coalition for Open Government. Carr is -- controversially -- the chairman of the state's commission reviewing exemptions to the Public Records Law. Today he said would like the city to buy an archiving tool that would greatly improve document production for public-records requests. But: My mayor and council have to decide -- how many police officers is that worth? ... As a lawyer, I can't look the mayor in the face and say, 'Make do with less police officers.' Read More Dark Cloud over Government E-mail EFF Blog: January 22, 2008 A King County judge has issued a bad ruling on a public records issue. Last year a citizen requested several e-mails exchanges by school employees from the Seattle Public Schools. The Seattle Education Association opposed the request, and last Friday the judge exempted the e-mails from disclosure. We believe that public business conducted on public computers should be open to public scrutiny. Last year EFF won a case on the question of whether collective bargaining records are subject to disclosure. Attorney General Rob McKenna's model rules for open government state that e-mail is a "writing" for purposes of the Public Records Act. Read More Open the door to public records Seattle Times: January 22, 2008 Rep. Brendan Williams, D-Olympia, wants to bulldoze the intimidating mound heaped by the state Supreme Court in front of citizens requesting public records from their local agencies. Recently, the high court narrowly affirmed the right of agencies to sue citizens or organizations who merely request public documents under the state Open Records Act. Imagine, you are a middle-class parent wanting documents related to a controversial school board decision and instead of the document, you get hauled into court. Are you going to drop your request or tap your kids' college fund to pay a lawyer? Read More Senate disclosure bill opens door to discrimination Spokesman Review: January 22, 2008 Attorney General Rob McKenna has been a strong advocate for open government. If you care about access to public records and openness of public meetings in Washington state, you owe him thanks. So there is no reason to suspect that McKenna has a hidden, sinister motive for supporting legislation aimed at discouraging prison inmates' requests for public records. That doesn't make it a good idea, however. We sympathize with McKenna's concern that convicts with plenty of time on their hands have created what he calls a "cottage industry" out of filing records requests. The incentive, at least in some cases, is that if an agency such as the state Department of Corrections wrongly fails to comply, the requesting prisoner is in a position to collect court-awarded penalties ranging from $5 to $100 a day. Read More Legislature needs to ensure public is properly informed Bellingham Herald: January 20, 2008 "The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies that serve them … The people insist on remaining informed so that they may maintain control over the instruments they have created." Without immediate action by the Washington Legislature, these stirring words in the introduction to the Public Records Act may soon become hollow rhetoric. This danger stems from a 5-4 decision recently handed down by our state Supreme Court, which will make it easier for agencies to hide documents behind the curtain of "attorney-client privilege." The ruling is the latest of several decisions by the court which broadened public records exemptions related to this privilege. Read More Police safety at crux of new bill Yakima Herald Republic: January 20, 2008 The memory of an anonymous threatening note left at her Spokane home still haunts Karen Schweigert, the wife of a Washington State Patrol officer and mother of three. The note, which she believes was intended to strike fear in her husband, reflects a concern Schweigert hopes lawmakers will address this year. Working with state lawmakers, she's helped draft a bill this legislative session to make it tougher for personal information about police officers to be released to the public. "Law enforcement officers are always in danger. Danger follows them home," Schweigert said. Read More We can be sued for silence Wenatchee World: January 19, 2008 There's a new technique in the never-ending quest for government secrecy. If you request a government record, a document you believe is rightfully public information, the government in question can refuse. You then file a written request, after which the agency desiring the public know less about it can file a lawsuit ... against you. Then, there's a chance a judge could declare the records a secret, maybe because they are potential evidence in litigation. The irony here is rich - government maintains secrets by suing the people who ask to see public records. Of course, they will use public funds to finance legal action to keep records away from the public. And don't ask for anything the government attorneys consider their "work product." Those are secrets, too. Read More Measure aims to improve access to state budget Tri-City Herald: January 18, 2008 It sounds too good to be true, but the Taxpayer Transparency Act would actually do what its name implies and make it easier to see how your money is spent. Apparently state lawmakers haven't adopted the other Washington's Orwellian practice of using misleading bill titles to hide what's inside. The Taxpayer Transparency Act would create an online database that the public could tap into for details about agencies and companies receiving state funds. Enter the name of any company, and up pops the amount of state money it's getting, what the money is supposed to buy and links to all state audits of past performance. Read More A public-records fix Spokesman Review: January 18, 2008 The Inland Northwest is home to more than 20,000 men and women who once lived in the former Soviet Union. Many came to escape religious persecution. They lived under governments that often ruled by intimidation. Step out of line and face consequences in your job, your family, your well-being. Some people, especially those active in underground religious organizations, knew the government was keeping extensive files on their activities. Then these former residents of the Soviet Union moved to America, the land of freedom, where most government files belong to the people, not to elected leaders or the agencies that maintain public records. Washington state's Public Records Act makes it clear that "the people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies that serve them … the people insist on remaining informed so that they may maintain control over the instruments that they have created." Read More Inmate records 'lottery' Spokesman Review: January 17, 2008 Faced with what Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna calls a "cottage industry" of prison inmates filing massive requests for government records in hopes of collecting penalties for slip-ups, state lawmakers are considering changing the rules. Instead of paying any penalties to the inmate, as happens now, the money would instead go into the state's victim-compensation fund. "In no way is (the proposal) intended to let an agency off the hook," Tim Ford, an assistant attorney general, told lawmakers Tuesday at a Senate hearing. Inmates could still request the records. And agencies that wrongly deny requests or make other mistakes would still face the prospect of paying court-ordered penalties and attorney's costs. But the "lottery" motive behind many requests would be erased, Ford said. Under current law, a judge can award $5 to $100 per day when someone is wrongly denied a public document. Read More Open Records: Ease stranglehold Seattle PI: January 16, 2008 Washington courts have expanded the ability of schools and governments to hide public business from the people under the guise of working with their attorneys on possible litigation. It's up to the Legislature to ease the increasing stranglehold on government actions. In a case involving the Spokane School District and the death of a child, a narrow Washington Supreme Court majority expanded public agencies' ability to claim that basic factual matters can be excluded from public view as the work product of an attorney. The ruling is a dangerous extension of a 2004 court decision that narrowed the people's right to see records. Four justices dissented in eloquent terms to the Spokane ruling. And Justice Barbara Madsen, while agreeing with the majority, pointedly praised the dissent's arguments on the value of public disclosure. Read More Monorail Agency to Close Seattle Times: January 16, 2008 The Seattle Monorail Project board will meet tonight to close the agency, a full two years after voters gave up on building a long-distance monorail. Since the November 2005 vote, the agency remained open to sell its unused station sites, pay off debt and fend off various lawsuits. The final case, an attempt by open-government advocates to pry loose some old internal documents, was dismissed in October. Read More Bill bars suits against records requesters Spokesman Review: January 16, 2008 Spurred by Spokane Public Schools' legal fight to withhold documents about the death of a student, an Olympia lawmaker on Tuesday filed a bill to bar government agencies from suing people who file public records requests. "It's outrageous for governments to sue the governed in order to maintain secrecy," state Rep. Brendan Williams, D-Olympia, said in a statement Tuesday. "When governments can operate in the shadows on even life-and-death matters, it destroys the public's confidence in government." He was referring to the six-year legal battle between the school district and The Spokesman-Review over witness accounts surrounding the 2001 death of 9-year-old Logan Elementary School student Nathan Walters. Read More White House recycles backup e-mail tapes Yahoo News: January 16, 2008 The White House has acknowledged recycling its backup computer tapes of e-mail before October 2003, raising the possibility that many electronic messages - including those pertaining to the CIA leak case - have been taped over and are gone forever. The disclosure came minutes before midnight Tuesday under a court-ordered deadline that forced the White House to reveal information it has previously refused to provide. Among the e-mails that could be lost are messages swapped by any White House officials involved in discussions about leaking the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. Before October 2003, the White House recycled its backup tapes "consistent with industry best practices," according to a sworn statement by a White House aide. Read More Auditor: Commissioners Violated Law Chronicle: January 15, 2008 Lewis County commissioners were in violation of open public meetings law in 2006, according to a draft report on Monday from the State Auditor's Office. Although more detailed information about the audit's findings are yet to be released, the preliminary report suggests e-mails about county government reorganization were illegally exchanged between Commissioner Richard Graham and former Commissioner Jim Lowery. The Open Public Meetings Act forbids any two of three commissioners to discuss county business outside a public forum. But based on e-mail correspondence obtained by The Chronicle in 2006, dozens of e-mails moved between the accounts of Lowery and Graham. They discussed the reorganization process and frustration with both former Chief of Staff Larry Keeton and former Commissioner Dennis Hadaller. Read More Police union, city in tussle Seattle Times: January 14, 2008 After a year marked by controversy over the discipline of Seattle police officers, the city and its police union appear to be on a collision course over possible changes in the way the Police Department handles allegations of officer misconduct. Who prevails could shape for years to come how the city's police officers are held accountable. An expert panel appointed by Mayor Greg Nickels is expected to release recommendations by the end of the month for improving the disciplinary system. The police union and city officials have spent the past several months staking out ground over how far changes can go. Read More Legislative session should focus only on big issues Bellingham Herald: January 13, 2008 We also hope that legislators quickly react to a recent court decision that could significantly damage citizens' rights to access public documents. The state Supreme Court recently gave governments broad rights to withhold documents citing the potential for "attorney-client privilege." Under the court's interpretation, governments could withhold documents from citizens just in case the documents may be part of court proceedings in the future. The Legislature must undo this horrible move toward secrecy immediately. Our state must not move toward secrecy over public access. If governments no longer have to answer to citizens, our state is in serious danger of ethics violations, malfeasance and mistreatment of citizens by the people who work for them. Read More Booster e-mails show seamy side of Huskydom Tacoma News Tribune: January 11, 2008 Who would have guessed that the state's public records law would yield such a startling glimpse of another planet - the sometimes ugly world of fanatic Husky boosters who measure the quality of their lives by the success of Husky football? Thanks to a Seattle Times public records request, the University of Washington has turned over hundreds of e-mail messages sent recently to UW President Mark Emmert, athletic director Todd Turner and football Coach Ty Willingham. One of those messages was so shocking as to take your breath away. Sent by Ed Hansen, a former mayor of Everett and a multimillionaire booster, it offered huge bounties for the firings of Willingham and Turner, who've had three consecutive losing seasons. Read More Citizens should be able to track state spending Everett Herald: January 11, 2008 The Internet can be a great equalizer in the relationship between citizens and their government. Knowledge is power, and the Internet has lots of it. Government can and should encourage citizen involvement by using online tools that open its processes to public view. Snohomish County will take a big step in that direction next month when it launches a new system that will make video and audio of County Council meetings, along with a host of related documents, available free to the public online. State government can take its own big step toward online transparency by creating a searchable Web site where citizens can track state spending in plain, understandable English. Such a proposal failed to get a hearing in the Legislature last year, but will be reintroduced by Sen. Val Stevens (R-Arlington) during the short session that begins Monday. Read More Abused foster girls accuse state of hiding documents KING 5: January 10, 2008 Two state agencies have just been slapped with what could be one of the biggest public disclosure lawsuits ever filed in Washington. The Attorney General's Office and the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) are accused of hiding important documents in a case involving three girls who were abused in a foster home, first in Kirkland, then in Redmond. A 1971 citizen initiative paved the way for the state's Public Disclosure Law, which is designed to give the public access to the government's paper trail. It directs governmental agencies to be open with their documents, as they belong to the people. Read More A fix for an open government setback Tacoma News Tribune: January 10, 2008 We editorialized a couple of weeks ago about the state Supreme Court decision that handed government agencies broad powers to keep documents secret and to fend off requests for public records. This week, former state lawmaker Toby Nixon, who now heads the Washington Coalition for Open Government, and Jonathan Bechtle, director of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's Citizenship and Governance Center, called on the Legislature to sew up the ever-widening attorney-client privilege loophole. This is something that we'll be watching closely this session. Read More Huskies booster offered $100K for coach's firing Seattle Times: January 10, 2008 It's kind of assumed: Big-money boosters will, from time to time, try to influence the direction of their favorite college teams, however discreetly. But when Ed Hansen - lawyer, multimillionaire, University of Washington alumnus and former three-term Everett mayor - wrote UW President Mark Emmert six weeks ago, he abandoned all sense of delicacy. Hansen, unhappy with the state of Huskies football, placed a price upon the head of the football coach and the school's athletic director. His e-mail said... Read More Budgets Online Columbian: January 9, 2008 When Republican State Attorney General Rob McKenna and Democratic State Auditor Brian Sonntag agree on an idea, Washingtonians would do well to pay attention. Both leaders feverishly pursue policies over politics. Both men have powerful reputations as independent problem solvers. McKenna and Sonntag support a proposed budget database that would allow taxpayers to research state spending on the Internet. It's a superb idea, and Washingtonians should feel slightly embarrassed that Congress beat our state to the punch. To see the result of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act that was approved last year, visit usaspending.org , which became operational on Dec. 7. Read More Open government needs legislative fix Seattle PI: January 9, 2008 "The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies that serve them. ... The people insist on remaining informed so that they may maintain control over the instruments they have created." Without immediate action by the Washington Legislature, these stirring words in the introduction to the Public Records Act may soon become hollow rhetoric. This danger stems from a 5-4 decision recently handed down by the Washington Supreme Court, which will make easier for agencies to hide documents behind the curtain of "attorney-client privilege." The ruling is the latest of several decisions by the court that broadened public records exemptions related to this privilege. Read More Port of Seattle enacts reforms Seattle PI: January 9, 2008 The port commission is also beginning to schedule its closed-door executive sessions for twice per month, rather than four times, and will be asking that an independent attorney review a sampling of those sessions' taped recordings to make sure that the commission isn't circumventing the state's requirements for openness. Read More Panel, public forum to tackle government access Everett Herald: January 8, 2008 The public's legal right to know what its government is doing, or already did, is always at risk. Protecting that right is something journalists and open government advocates continue to press for as new legislation and lawsuits erode the laws on the books. A panel discussion and public forum is planned Wednesday to discuss what threatens public access to meetings and public records. "Everyone who cares about what government is doing will learn something at this meeting and contribute to it as well," said Toby Nixon, president of the Washington Coalition for Open Government. Nixon is a Microsoft program manager and a former state representative. Read More Delete at Your Own Risk Governing.com: January 8, 2008 For several months last fall, the St. Louis media had a field day with Missouri Governor Matt Blunt's office for doing the equivalent of crumpling up important office correspondence and tossing it away. Employees weren't using a wastebasket, though. They were tossing out messages by clicking "delete" on their computers. Staff members insisted there was no written policy in their office on saving and deleting the e-mails. They said they routinely erased the messages because they didn't view them as part of the public record. Read More Hiding from the light Seattle Times: January 8, 2008 What do your local government officials have to hide? Apparently something; otherwise, why would their lobbyists in Olympia be opposing a bill to require government councils, boards and commissions merely to keep a recording of their closed, executive sessions? The bipartisan tag team of Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna and Democratic Auditor Brian Sonntag are proposing a simple bill that will clear up suspicion and concern that has surrounded closed government proceedings. Read More Lawmaker seeks to boost fine for open meeting act violations Tri-City Herald: January 6, 2008 State Rep. Larry Haler plans to introduce legislation increasing penalties on elected officials who violate the state's Open Public Meetings Act. Violators have been subject to a $100 civil fine since the law was put on the books in 1971. But after being made aware of a rash of apparent violations in the Tri-Cities and across the state, Haler wants to boost that to $1,000 when the Legislature convenes for a 60-day session later this month. "One hundred dollars right now isn't a heck of a lot of money," said Haler, a Richland Republican and a former member of the Richland City Council. "It isn't enough to say, 'Whoa, let me stop and think about this.' " Read More Washington AG to push for bill to require closed-door meeting tapes Tri-City Herald: January 4, 2008 State Attorney General Rob McKenna on Thursday outlined 16 community safety, consumer protection and government transparency proposals he'll ask the Legislature to adopt when it convenes later this month. Included in the mix is a bill the Republican will request jointly with Democratic state Auditor Brian Sonntag requiring the taping of closed-door sessions held by city councils, school boards and other local governing boards. It's a measure Sonntag has unsuccessfully pushed before and he looks forward to the help. Between 2004-06 his office documented more than 400 cases in which the state's Open Public Meeting Act may have been violated. And most of those incidents involved closed-door sessions, also known as executive sessions. Read More Attorney general lays out agenda Olympian: January 4, 2008 Attorney General Rob McKenna outlined an ambitious legislative agenda Thursday that deals with cell-phone privacy, online child pornography, shared sick leave for domestic-violence victims and mortgage-foreclosure scams. The Republican also is pushing for several changes to open-government laws when lawmakers return to Olympia for a 60-day session that begins Jan. 14. One proposed bill would bar prison inmates from big legal awards in records cases. Another, co-written with Democratic Auditor Brian Sonntag, would force local governments to tape-record closed-door, or executive, sessions. Read More State high court rulings at odds with open records Yakima Herald: January 3, 2008 How ironic that while a special "Sunshine Committee" is reviewing exemptions to the state Public Meetings Act to determine if they're justified, a bare majority of the state Supreme Court seems bent on making access to public records even more difficult. In a 5-4 ruling, the high court said documents relating to a child's peanut-allergy death while on a school field trip could be withheld from The Spokesman-Review newspaper of Spokane because of exemptions for attorney-client privilege and attorney work product. A second finding of concern in the same case upheld state or local government agencies seeking a judgment in Superior Court over whether a particular record is subject to disclosure. Read More Court ruling hampers public's right to know Tri-City Herald: January 2, 2008 Six years ago, a third-grade student in Spokane died from an extreme allergic reaction after eating part of a peanut butter cookie while on a school field trip. The boy, his parents, his teacher and the district all knew about his allergy. His death was a tragedy. Last week, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that documents surrounding the school's investigation into that death are not the public's business. It's not a tragedy, but it is a loss to open government Read More Click here to read 2007 news stories If you know of issues regarding government access in Washington state, let us know at info@washingtoncog.org |
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