| HOME BOARD ONLY ABOUT US SITE MAP | |||||
News 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Many experts agreed that with executive branch officials increasingly making decisions through online collaboration, an outdated hodgepodge of paper-based systems that agencies use to keep key e-mails threatens the ability of historians to reconstruct important deliberations.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 |
|
||||
