Armen Yousoufian was just trying to answer his 9-year-old daughter when she asked why, despite a public vote turning it down, Safeco Field was going up in the shadow of the Kingdome.

Marysia Yousoufian's simple question turned into a $30 million lawsuit against King County over public records access.

And although Armen Yousoufian won a partial victory, he isn't satisfied.

It all started in 1995 when Yousoufian, owner of the University Plaza Hotel in Seattle, couldn't answer his daughter's question.

King County voters that year had rejected a proposal to raise the local sales tax to pay for a new baseball stadium. But state lawmakers and then-Gov. Mike Lowry later met in emergency session and approved a different funding proposal to get the stadium built.

At a breakfast for business leaders, Yousoufian posed his daughter's question to then-King County Executive Gary Locke. He said he got no satisfactory answer.

Later, after Locke had been elected governor and Ron Sims took over the county executive post, Yousoufian heard Sims on the radio, seeking public support for the new Seahawks football stadium. At the time, Sims referred to studies that showed a stadium-supporting fast-food tax had not been passed on to consumers. Sims also referred to an economic study the county had commissioned that justified spending public money on the stadium.

Yousoufian wanted to see those studies.

He doubted the fast-food tax had not trickled down to consumers, and he knew his tax money had helped pay for those studies. If the stadium were approved, his tax money would help pay to build it.

Yousoufian, a Vashon Island resident, has an MBA with a concentration in accounting and finance. He's done countless real estate deals. He knows that for every government purchase, there has to be a check and an accounting of expenses.

He wanted to see those, too.

Having had experience requesting public documents, he also knew he could file a written request and expect within five business days to have the documents or know a legal reason why not.

In May 1997, he filed a formal request, citing the Public Records Act, for "all file materials relating to and including the widely quoted Conway study."

"I got a hostile response," he said. "The receptionist wanted to know who I was and why I wanted this."

Passed from department to department, Yousoufian wrote numerous requests and letters and received some information, but not all he sought.

He was told his first request would take three weeks. He didn't mind waiting. He offered to pay for copies.

In June 1997 - two weeks after Yousoufian's request to see the studies - a statewide public vote approved a financing plan for the new football stadium by a 51 percent to 49 percent margin.

But Yousoufian still didn't have what he'd asked for. And three years later, he was still waiting.

In March 2000, he filed suit. He has so far received more than 200 documents but not all of the paperwork he seeks relating to financing of the stadium.

Fines for noncompliance with state law are between $5 and $100 per day. Yousoufian asked for the maximum per day per document. About 1,500 days passed since the time of his original request and when he received most of the documents.

In the lawsuits last hearing before a Superior Court judge late this summer, the county admitted it had not fully complied in 1997. The county believes it has fully complied now, though Yousoufian disagrees.

The county also disputes the amount Yousoufian is owed for his trouble.

In her ruling, Judge J. Kathleen Learned said Yousoufian's original request was broad but not ambiguous. The judge pointed out that the request had been passed along to county employees who had not been adequately trained to handle public disclosure requests and didn't take the trouble to learn. Learned said the county was negligent in responding on time and gave incorrect and incomplete information.

Staff members told Yousoufian there were no more documents when the paperwork really did exist, and they told him staff members had spent "hundreds of hours" working on his requests when it actually took only two days to locate what he sought.

Learned pointed out that the law requires agencies to provide "the fullest assistance possible" to citizens making requests, and that a failure to fulfill those obligations amounts to a lack of good faith. She said the nondisclosure didn't seem to be intentional, but the negligence, misrepresentations and lack of organization amounted to bad faith.

Learned awarded Yousoufian more than $25,000 in fines for the documents some of which were 936 days late and more than $80,000 in attorney fees. The amounts were based on minimum fines that could be levied.

But that isn't the end of the story.

Though he would not comment on the specifics of the Yousoufian case, Sims said his office has streamlined public disclosure policy since he took over.

In 1997, each department dealt with public records requests individually. Now, each request - and there are hundreds - is seen by Sims' chief of staff and attended to by attorneys from the county prosecutor's office.

In court documents, the county said it also has started a training program for public disclosure officers.

"We want to be absolutely exhaustive in answering these requests," Sims said.

Yousoufian isn't convinced he has everything he seeks.

"This is a terrible result for citizens deprived of full and timely disclosure in future PDA requests, and the lawyers who might want to take their cases," he said. "The judge agreed with virtually all of our facts, agreed that I was denied full and timely disclosure, but did not even make our side whole financially for what it took to get King County to disgorge the documents."