Oct. 21, 2001

Project sought to test public's access to records

By Laurie Williams
Tri-City Herald

This summer, journalists from 25 newspapers and The Associated Press asked for copies of public records throughout Washington state. They did not identify themselves as journalists unless specifically asked; the goal was to determine how non-journalists would be treated if they were to make such requests.

They went to public agencies to find out about sex offenders and crimes near their homes. They also asked for results of restaurant health inspections, for contracts of top school officials and for assessed home values.

Many public agencies are accustomed to handling journalists' requests for information. But the aim of this effort was to see how non-journalists would be treated when seeking information that average citizens might reasonably need to know: Has a sex offender moved into my neighborhood? Should I be concerned that the police showed up at a house in the next block? How clean is the restaurant where we plan to hold our daughter's soccer team party?

Each of the requests sought information that by law ought to be made available in some form.

The journalists' efforts resulted in "Washington: Your Right to Know," a package of stories produced over a six-month period of gathering information, analyzing it, and writing about it. The stories do not represent a scientific survey. Rather, they offer a snapshot of how public officials treated people who sought information about public events, issues of public health and safety, and records the public pays its government to maintain.

The survey was the first of its kind to examine Washington's Public Records Act, which defines a public record as any document prepared, owned, used or kept by a state or local agency. Such records are presumed to be public, unless specifically exempted from disclosure by law.

Here are some general observations:

- Many of the journalists in our survey were sent away empty-handed. And 8 percent of them said the public employees they met were "antagonistic."

- In almost one of every five cases, people requesting information were asked why they wanted it - a question outside the bounds of state law - before their requests were even considered.

- As a rule, officials from sparsely populated counties were no more or less likely to comply with the law than their urban counterparts. And there were no significant differences between counties east of the Cascade Range and those west of it.

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