If you’re a fan of open government, here’s the good news: Local governments in the South Sound responded to more than 33,000 public disclosure requests in 2007 and supplied records 97 percent of the time – typically within two weeks, according to a News Tribune study.

Denials of records were correspondingly rare. Attorney-client privilege and law enforcement effectiveness were the most common reasons given for denying public access. Both are lawful exemptions under state law, and both are hotly debated in open-government circles.

To mark Sunshine Week, a national initiative that encourages open government and freedom of information, The News Tribune examined all records requests received in 2007 by 49 local agencies – chiefly cities and school districts in Pierce and South King counties.

The raw numbers look good, but it’s not so simple. A selection of lowlights:

 • The biggest record-keeper in Pierce County, the Law Enforcement Support Agency, provided general estimates of performance, but could not say who asked for records or provide an accounting of denials. The News Tribune believes both are required under state law.

 • The City of Puyallup took three weeks or longer on average to answer routine records requests that other agencies typically answered within a day or two.

 • A Buckley woman who accused her ex-boyfriend, a police officer, of domestic violence and obtained a restraining order against him has sued Pierce County for nondisclosure of records related to her case.

 • A Thurston County activist has sued the Port of Tacoma for nondisclosure of records, arguing that the agency is delaying disclosure of records related to an expansion project.

 • Many agencies in the study destroy deleted e-mails and electronic records within two weeks or a month, possibly violating state records-retention laws.

While the study suggests high levels of compliance, closer examination reveals a wide range of record-keeping practices. In some cases, logs of record requests were so vague that performance was difficult or impossible to measure.

“I worry that they’re sort of self-censoring,” said Michelle Earl-Hubbard, an attorney who has argued public-disclosure cases before the state Supreme Court, and a former president of the Washington Coalition for Open Government.

“That truly would not be my experience that 99 percent of the agencies in your region are giving people records,” she said, referring to the study’s high compliance rate.

NO LOGS

The region’s biggest record-keeper is LESA, which provides 911 emergency communications and law enforcement dispatch services for Tacoma, Pierce County and eight other police agencies; and manages records for 14 police agencies. LESA handles the most common type of records request: accident and police reports, usually sought for insurance purposes.

LESA received 25,772 records requests in 2007, typically supplying documents within five days, according to agency estimates.

The News Tribune asked for records of individual requests. LESA supplied statistical information, but leaders said that the agency doesn’t file requests by name or date – instead, they’re filed with the original incident report. Requesters can find the records they seek if they have a name associated with the record, or perhaps an address.

It’s largely a paper-based system: Records requests are stapled to the reports. Those reports fill shelf upon shelf at the agency. There is no separate log – no way to track individual requests or denials.

“It’s not on the high-priority list,” said Tom Orr, LESA’s executive director. “That requires staff and resources.”

Orr said the agency is developing an electronic tracking system that will allow for more precise recording and allow people to request records online. It’s been in the testing stage for more than a year, but it’s a long way from ready.

“We want to have that system,” Orr said. “It will be there in the future. It’s not there now.”

When the agency weighs its priorities, leaders choose adding dispatchers before refining record-keeping practices.

While LESA pleads lack of resources, assistant attorney general Tim Ford, the state’s open-government ombudsman, sees no basis for sympathy.

“It’s a sign that an agency is well-organized and is conserving their own resources if they maintain an index,” he said. “Their excuse for not giving you records that they know exist is that they’re so disorganized that they don’t know where they are. There’s no statutory exemption that says it’s too burdensome. They need to go through those reports and find them.”

Orr disputed the idea that LESA is required to maintain an index. He said LESA is doing its best, and he is proud of the agency’s ability to handle large volumes of records requests.

“It’s not like we haven’t recognized the need,” he said.

WHAT WE ASK FOR AND WHO WE ARE

When the public asks for records, the concerns are usually practical, according to the study. The most common type of request: police reports. They represent eight slices of a nine-slice pie.

We skid into fender-benders. We report break-ins. We call the cops. We file insurance claims. We line up at government windows. We sue each other.

The 25,772 requests received by LESA in 2007 dwarf the combined total of records requests received by the other 48 agencies in the study – a natural outcome, because of LESA wide-ranging duties. (Note to math geeks: LESA’s quick response time and low denial rate skew the study results slightly. The other agencies supplied records roughly 95 percent of the time. Add the huge pool of LESA numbers, and the rate goes up to about 97 percent.)

Sometimes people handle their own requests, but insurance companies looking for proof of claims outnumber them, as do attorneys pursuing legal actions related to traffic accidents.

Jail and prison inmates make up another category. Generally, they’re looking for records related to the crimes that put them behind bars. The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department received 38 records requests from inmates in 2007.

Requests from media outlets fill another sliver of the total request tally. The News Tribune filed more than 200 disclosure requests with the agencies in the study. Other media – television stations and out-of-town newspapers – combined for a few dozen more.

Then there are the activists – people who make a habit of bird-dogging their local governments. Milton resident Steve Tomaso peppered the small city administration with 48 records requests in 2007. Most were related to his complaints about excessive glare from new lights at a neighboring athletic field.

In the City of Lakewood, a pair of activists filed 60 disclosure requests in 2007 – about one-sixth of the 375 received citywide. Frederic Cornell (28 requests) is a stickler for rules and meeting minutes. Gregory Hart (32 requests), a self-described environmentalist, has a long-running feud with city government over land-use issues, park stewardship and what he says was a wrongful arrest.

Hart’s requests have a florid tone. He filed a typical example on Oct. 2, 2007:

“It is my demand and command of you who oversee our city and are the gate keepers of our city in the capacity of the Directorship seats and/or Council seats you now hold, that you immediately PRODUCE to me ALL of our lost tax calculations for our city for each consecutive year from February 28, 1996 to this date,” he began, adding several more demands before signing off.

In response, Lakewood clerks have sometimes asked Hart for clarification, or tried to explain that the records he wants don’t exist or are held by other agencies. His response, recorded in e-mails, tends to be a thundered “Unacceptable!”

The most common reason for a denial: civic ignorance. People seeking public records go to the wrong place.

“The most common misconception is where to get the records from,” said Yvonne Yaskus, who handles public records requests for the Tacoma City Clerk’s office. “I get a lot of requests for birth certificates, divorce decrees. Someone says, ‘Please help me find so-and-so, I know he lives in Tacoma.’ I get probably at least a dozen of those a week.”

Educated residents who know what they’re after have a different misconception, Yaskus added. They think all requests will be fulfilled within five days – but that’s not the way it works. Local governments must provide an initial response to a request within five days – but that response can say how long it will take to find the records requested.

SLOW TO REACT

The City of Puyallup, which received 226 disclosure requests in 2007, had the slowest average response time among the governments in the study that received more than 100 requests in 2007.

On average, people got their records within 13 days from the 49 agencies surveyed. Records from Puyallup show the city took almost twice as long to respond to people seeking public records. The city’s average response time was 24 days.

Puyallup’s delays ballooned because of slow responses to routine requests, such as police reports for insurance claims. People waited 30, 60 or 90 days for records other governments typically supply within a day or two. One individual waited 69 days for the city to provide a two-page police report. Another had to wait 166 days for 28 pages of police records.

Lorri Ericson, Puyallup police spokeswoman, said the Police Department realized in late 2007 that requests for records were taking too long to fulfill.

“We were having a really long turnaround time, and it was stressful on our staff,” she said. “We did realize that we could do a better job. We have changed our process.”

The department began a round of records training for staff this year, Ericson said. Employees now have more discretion to handle routine records requests quickly, shortening response times.

“It’s working a lot better,” she said.

RECORDS DENIED

Buckley resident Alexis Alexandria has been battling Pierce County courts for two years over records related to domestic violence. In 2004, she obtained a restraining order against her ex-boyfriend, Kenneth McDonough, a Bonney Lake police officer. McDonough was subsequently charged with fourth-degree assault (domestic violence) in Pierce County District Court. He was acquitted, but the restraining order remained active.

Following the verdict, Alexandria filed a records request seeking police reports and field notes. In 2006, Pierce County supplied some records, but withheld 259 pages, saying the documents were protected by attorney-client privilege.

Alexandria filed suit in July 2007. In February, a King County judge accepted Alexandria’s motion to review the records and determine whether Pierce County’s decision to withhold was proper. No decision has been reached yet.

Alexandria’s attorney, Scott Johnson, did not respond to a phone message from The News Tribune seeking comment.

County attorneys argue that Alexandria could obtain the records from other sources, such as the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department. They say they don’t want to set a precedent that would allow examination of prosecutor’s notes, or create the prospect of prosecutors becoming witnesses in civil cases.

“If we can get people to go to the source, which can be Tacoma police or the sheriff’s office, that takes a load off our office, which is a pretty stressed office as far as workload is concerned,” said deputy prosecutor Doug Vanscoy, head of the county’s civil division.

TWO-WEEK DESTRUCTION CYCLE

Disclosure logs from Pierce County government showed high rates of compliance with records requests, but also revealed that the county’s data storage systems destroy deleted e-mails after 14 days.

Destruction isn’t mandatory. County and city employees can preserve e-mails, but if they delete them, the information moves to backup computer server tapes that are recycled every two weeks.

The practice was bitterly debated during a 2007 lawsuit filed against the Pierce County Auditor’s Office by the Building Industry Association of Washington. The suit revolved around accusations of illegal voter registrations.

The association contended the county wrongly destroyed e-mails that might have been relevant to the matter. The county prevailed in the suit, which featured an intricate debate about the relationship between public records law and records retention law. The builders association is appealing the ruling.

The retention issue also surfaced in a series of records requests to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department filed by defense attorney Barbara Corey in 2007. Craig Adams, the sheriff’s legal adviser, told Corey it would be difficult to retrieve the e-mails Corey requested.

“As a general rule, any e-mails which were deleted and sent to the trash are not recoverable more than 14 days past the date they were sent to the trash,” Adams wrote. “We cannot recover that which no longer exists.”

SUING THE PORT

Olympia activist Arthur West sued the Port of Tacoma for nondisclosure late last year. He wants to find out as much as he can about the port’s plans for the South Sound Logistics Center, a joint venture between the ports of Tacoma and Olympia that would create a rail-based cargo facility in Thurston County.

West sued the port within weeks of filing his request, saying the agency was taking too long to supply the records. The case is in Pierce County Superior Court.

“It’s a delaying tactic,” West said. “They don’t want to assert exemptions until they have to. They don’t want to give out records until they have to. They’ve had these public meetings and said that they’re transparent, but when you ask for the records they’re not transparent.”

In court filings, the port argues that West is getting records, even if the response isn’t fast enough to suit him. Officials say they’ve given him access to more than 10,000 pages of documents.

Internal e-mails between port staff show that they withheld public information, sought shortcuts in public process and insulted the Port of Olympia and activists opposed to the project.

THE AUDITOR’S TURN

Within weeks, the state auditor’s office will release the results of its own public disclosure survey. The agency selected 30 large local governments around the state, including cities and counties.

The auditor’s survey differs from The News Tribune study in some respects. Rather than examining all requests received, the agency sent ordinary people to each agency to ask for routine records, and measured the response. Agency leaders expect to release results in April.

Sean Robinson: 253-597-8486

THE 49 AGENCIES

Here are the 49 agencies in Pierce County checked by The News Tribune:

Law Enforcement Support Agency
Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department
Port of Tacoma
Metro Parks Tacoma
Pierce Transit
Tacoma Public Utilities
Tacoma School District
Franklin Pierce School District
Puyallup School District
Clover Park School District
Federal Way School District
Peninsula School District
Bethel School District
Sumner School District
Orting School District
Auburn School District
Fife School District
White River School District
Steilacoom School District
Dieringer School District
Enumclaw School District
University Place School District
Clover Park Technical College
Pierce College
Bates Technical College
University of Washington Tacoma
Tacoma Community College
Pierce County government
Auburn city government
Tacoma city government
Lakewood city government
Federal Way city government
University Place city government
Buckley city government
Fircrest city government
Gig Harbor city government
Milton city government
Bonney Lake city government
Edgewood city government
DuPont city government
Eatonville city government
Pacific city government
Steilacoom city government
Enumclaw city government
Algona city government
Orting city government
Fife city government
Puyallup city government
Sumner city government

• SEARCHABLE: Check your local government’s public disclosure performance