Open Gov't Community Forum - Follow Up

I can remember when I first became interested in open meeting laws.  In the years after college, several of my friends and I would meet once a week at the Parkway to catch up, have a few drinks, and play some pinball.  We did this for several years.  Often, in the next booth over, there’d be a couple of city council members, the city manager, plus others doing the exact same thing we seemed to be doing.  Although I don’t think they ever played pinball.  On one particular evening our friend’s father was in town.  He’s a city council member, and occasional mayor, for a city in Southern California.  As we sat at our booth, and one of us mentioned that these guys over here (shoulder nod) are city council members, our friend’s father looked at us quizzically.  “At least where I’m from, that’s illegal.”  Curious we thought.  Could it be?  They’ve been here for years…

Tonight I made it to the Open Government Community Forum hosted by the Coalition for Open Government and the News Tribune.  The general topics for the evening were Open Records and Open Meetings laws in Washington State.  On the panel were Michele Earl-Hubbard (President of Washington COG), Brian Sonntag (State Auditor), Greg Overstreet (Special Assistant to the Attorney General), and Toby Nixon (State Rep, 45th District).  Generally speaking, I was moderately impressed by the conversation. 

Over and over again we heard anecdotes about how some government agency put up roadblocks to a citizen’s request for information.  Then we’d hear about the various ways groups of officials tried to get around open meetings laws.  Various individuals would tell us how the law actually works and what we can do to persistent, and ultimately, get the information we want.  We’d also here that there’s virtually no disincentive for them to say no.  Fines are too small.  Punishment is non-existent.  Politics plays a heavy role in what gets stalled.  It was wild.  Could it be so systemic?  The answer seemed to be yes.  The only public records request I’ve ever made was the FBI FOIA request I made last year.  Now I wanted to know more. 

Of course the audience was receptive to the panel.  Yeah!  This is bad.  Yeah!  We need laws.  Nobody that’s against public disclosure is showing up at a panel discussion like this one.  We had journalists and citizen activists in the audience.  There were a few more generic citizens like myself, but we seemed to be in the minority.  At the same time, it was empowering to be in a room with relatively like minded individuals. 

Here are the few lessons I learned after two hours of discussion:

1.  Be persistent (Like Sean Robinson of the TNT).
2.  Be prepared to negotiate.
3.  Don’t accept a simple no.  Don’t necessarily accept the reason.
4.  Generally speaking, existing laws are broken.
5.  Leverage Open Records Laws to analyze Open Meeting Concerns.

For more specific information, find yourself a copy fo Access – A Guide to Government Information, and/or contact the Washington Coalition for Open Government.