October 18, 2024

The Public Records Act To Benefit The Public, Or Govt?

Requesters are complaining more and more about the public’s ability to know about it’s government but despite Washington’s landmark Public Records Act, agencies, including The Local Port Angeles City Hall, are violating The Act in many ways and are being sued.

Clallam County, Forks and Sequim seem to appear more liberal in providing records and understand that a request can be submitted to anyone whom a requester comes in contact. The Port Angeles City Hall and it’s manager and record clerk are being poorly advised and are, less educated.  

The Act States;

“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.”

But there are fewer watchdogs fighting for transparency, throughout, including locally, and political culture is such that they, officials and personnel, want to control information and the narrative to protect their, interests.

Port Angeles Manager Nathan West has told the local Peninsula Daily News, hardly an anti-government source and, actually does it’s best to protect local government, that he, West, would no longer speak to even them because they, The PDN, actually reported on an internal issue.

AG Ferguson has strongly supported The PRA and it’s strict compliance by agencies to provide transparency to keep the public informed if only through records requests as The PRA states throughout The Act.

Agencies, such as The Port Angeles City Hall, have hired private attorneys to libel and slander requesters for simply filing complaints and for the purpose of keeping persistent private requesters under suspicion.

City Attorney Bloor has also asserted requesters have no right to make requests “in person” because the poor little pampered taxpayer funded babies don't think they should be bothered by those pesky citizens.

The Act only bars an “in person” request(er) in the event legal action had to be taken because of and to prevent unnecessary “disruptions” such as in a public meeting when a member of the audience had to be removed and temporarily barred from attending of which The 9th Circuit had said can not be permanent.

This site is not aware of any requester that had to be banned or refused access due to any credible allegation.

A recent request simply asked for “a list” of email addresses” for those of whom food is put on the table of by the taxpayers, requesters, Kari Martinez-Bailey and City Attorney Bloor sent a response that “a form” had to first be signed to release “the list” “to confirm” it, “the list,” would not be used for “commercial purposes” when in fact, that is not what The Statute States which is that ‘the request must state that it will be used for commercial purposes’ and, btw, what is so private or concerning about “a list” of public email addresses for those of whose tables, taxpayers put food.

Also, as this site had posted, “the “number of requests” and “inconvenience” or “harm to public figures” does not preclude agencies from strictly adhering to The PRA RCW 42.56.   

Exemptions to the law now appear in more than 650 statutes and subsections of the Revised Code of Washington, with 40% of the exemption provisions added within the last 11 years and delays in providing public records sharply increased over the last five years. A state survey found agencies took nearly 23 days to provide records, on average, in 2022, up from 15 days in 2019 of which is nothing compared to Port Angeles of which records from 2022 have still not been produced and mostly concerning paying a private attorney to defend the alleged violations and smear requesters.

Locally, The Port Angeles Police Department, whose spokesperson is of course Police Chief Brian Smith, has also whined on a City web page about the number of requests that his department has had to provide in recent years and requests that were submitted unrelated to this site.

Better rules won’t just benefit the media. Most records requests are now submitted by individuals, according to the state survey. In 2022 individuals made 36% of requests, only 2% came from the media, Government and law firms and other entities made more requests.

Considering all of the current controversy, this site happens to think the current Statute(s), RCW 42.56, is still good, as is, the problem is that The Agencies and it’s lawless records clerks need to be held accountable.

October 18, 2024 5:09am