Our View: Spirit of the law

‘The provisions of this chapter shall be liberally construed to promote … full access to public records so as to assure continuing public confidence of fairness of elections and governmental processes, and so as to assure that the public interest will be fully protected.”

Those words are drawn from the Declaration of Policy in Washington state’s Public Disclosure Act, which voters approved in 1972.

Clearly, citizens have a right to examine public records maintained by government agencies. You’d think that after 35 years, such a law would be ingrained in the minds of public officials. You’d be wrong.

Sure, many elected figures keep trying to erode the spirit of openness demanded by those who wrote and passed Initiative 276. That’s why the number of exemptions in the law has grown from 10 to more than 300. The Legislature this year created a commission to review the merits of those exemptions.

But that’s the legislative process, by which official public policy is established, amended or repealed.

That’s not the same as what happened in 2002 in Mesa, Wash., where former Mayor Donna Zink and her husband, Jeff, found out that a building permit issued to them had been canceled.

Besides appealing the decision, they went after the city records that would explain what was going on. The Zinks asked for numerous records related to their quashed building permit. The request should have been granted as a matter of routine.

While the Zinks were at it, they also requested documents having to do with unrelated complaints they’d heard from other Mesa residents. They were acting as “watchdogs,” they said. In all, they filed 172 disclosure requests over a 30-month period ending Jan. 31, 2005.

That may sound like a lot, but it figures out to one or two a week. And while that’s still a significant addition to the workload of the Mesa city clerk’s three- or four-person staff, city officials overstated the case when they called it harassment.

The officials contended that the demand overwhelmed their limited staff, making it impossible to comply with the deadlines established by law. And even though state law says specifically that such records have to be available for inspection at least seven hours a day, Mesa officials allowed the Zinks only one hour.

Close enough, ruled a Superior Court judge when the matter went to court. Without addressing most of the Zinks’ long list of complaints individually, Judge William Acey said the town was in “substantial compliance.” He also upheld the city’s harassment allegation.

Fortunately, even though the clear expectations of state law seem to have escaped Mesa officials and Judge Acey, Division III of the state Court of Appeals was there to remind them. In a ruling last week, the appellate court sent the case back to Franklin County to figure out how much the city of Mesa owes the Zinks in noncompliance penalties, which can range from $5 to $200.

Per violation.

Per day.

Washington law takes open government seriously. Washington’s public officials need to do the same.