In these tight budget times, it’s absolutely infuriating that government officials who operate on public tax dollars, are doling out thousands of dollars in fines for failure to live up to this state’s Public Records Act. Perhaps if government employees had to pay those fines out of their personal bank accounts, or face jail time, they would take record requests more seriously.
We like it when judges re-establish – as they have repeatedly – the importance of complying with the law.
The Public Records Act is crystal clear. It says: “The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies that serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may maintain control over the instruments that they have created.”
Public officials are the mere custodians of the records. The records themselves belong to the public. And when requested, public employees have an obligation to release those documents.
It’s simple, but too often public employees look for ways around the law. Unfortunately, lawmakers have played right into their hands by carving out – literally – hundreds of exemptions. So only through pressure – from the public, from news organizations and the courts – will public entities embrace the public’s right to know and release requested documents.
We were reminded of the recalcitrance or sloppiness of some public employees with two recent judicial decisions – one in Seattle, the other right here in Thurston County.
On Sept. 28 a King County Superior Court judge ordered the Seattle Police Department to pay a penalty of nearly $20,000 for denying public records to a 72-year-old antiques dealer.
The dealer had requested the records in 2010 after an internal police department investigation cleared a couple of officers in a misconduct case where the victim claimed excessive force. The antiques dealer sued to obtain the records. The Seattle Police Department handed over the records only after the state Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling that clearly shows that investigative records involving law enforcement officers are a matter of public record.
Seattle Police said they have learned their lesson and will not, in the future, withhold internal-investigation files when police officers are cleared of misconduct.
The antique dealer’s attorney, Patrick Helton, blasted the agency saying for refusing to turn over the document short of the Supreme Court ruling. “The Police Department is acting as though they are above the law,” Helton said.
Nobody is above the law. And there’s a lesson in that for other law enforcement agencies and government officials who try to skirt the Public Records Act.
That point was driven home in South Sound recently when Thurston County Superior Court Judge Paula Casey ordered the Olympia School District to pay $14,000 for violating the state’s records law.
Casey said the district failed to turn over a lone document to an attorney during his litigation on behalf of the family of a 6-year-old girl who was molested by a school bus driver.
The withheld record was a draft letter sent by the district’s former communications director, Peter Rex, to Olympia principals, providing a template for what the district could share with the public about the former bus driver’s arrest the day after he was placed in custody.
“I will find that it’s inexcusable neglect that he did not provide that record,” Casey said in her oral ruling.
We understand that mistakes are made. But given the importance of public records requests and the scrutiny of the courts, public employees must make certain they comply with the intent of the law, which is full disclosure. They must turn over all related documents, not just some of them or most of them.
In this case, the family is suing the school district for $2.5 million in damages. You would think the school district would be complete in dealing with the family’s attorney, and not overlook a public record.
The $14,000 fine drives home that point – again.
