A little tip to anybody who ever communicates with government officials via email… all your private communications are available via a public information request, so you better be on your best behavior. Take for example initiative profiteer Tim Eyman’s embarrassingly snotty tone in an email to Lori Anderson of the Public Disclosure Commission:
Subject: You were specifically instructed
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 16:39:57 -0800
From: “Tim Eyman”
To: “Lori Anderson”
CC: “Susan Harris”Ms. Anderson, as you can see from the email below, you were specifically instructed to communicate with Mike Fagan and we would handle the situation with Karla Grogan. You specifically violated this specific instruction by calling Karla Grogan today. They charge us for your conversations with them. If you weren’t told to talk with them, that’d be one thing, but you were specifically instructed to not communicate directly with her.
You just cost us a lot of money because you decided to ignore specific instructions from me.
What do you have to say about it?
Regards, Tim Eyman, ph: 425-493-9127, email: insignia@greekwatch.com
I’ll tell you what I have to say about it, Tim: eat me.
The PDC charges us taxpayers for their time, so if the quickest and best way for Lori to do her job is to speak directly to your accountant, then I say too damn bad for you. That’s just a cost of doing business.
I’ve been known to criticize the PDC for their lax enforcement attitude towards Timmy’s many transgressions. But as somebody who has actually filed PDC reports myself, I have to say that their customer service to filers is outstanding. They bend over backwards to help people like me and Tim file our reports accurately and on time, and have always been polite, courteous and prompt.
Tim needs to check his attitude at the door.
(Oh… and why do I have a copy of this email? I’ll get to that later.)
this is news? your digging the bottom of the barrel…NEWS FLASH POLITICAL FIGURE RUDE!!! hmm what to talk about on a saturday afternoon.
Don’t know if it was news, but it was damn funny!
Adriel @ 1
Since when did I claim to be a newspaper? This is commentary, as is 90% of what I write.
I think people need to do a little sanity check, and put into perspective what kind of role the blogs really play. Sites like HA and (u)SP are not reliable news sources… we’re propagandists. Understand that, and we can be incredibly informative. Misunderstand that, and we can be incredibly disinformative.
Every news outlet is propaganda in some way or another, I’ve never met an unbiased reporter or producer.
Adriel @ 4
You may be right; there may be no such thing as an unbiased reporter or producer. But all news is not propaganda. For instance, if a reporter tells me that a tornado just touched ground in Hookerswitch, Arkansas, and, in fact, a tornado did just touch down there, it is unbiased news, not propaganda. The reporter may like tornados, or he may hate tornados, but if he reports objectively, his bias is irrelevant. Same thing goes for reporting on politic affairs or war efforts. The real trick, though, isn’t discovering the biases in the reports, it’s being aware of the biases we bring to the listening, reading, or seeing of them.
As has been noted by many, believing is seeing, and not the other way around. However, it’s easier to just blame a biased media than to deal with that problem.
RDC @ 5
DUH! you know what I meant.
Adriel @ 1 What do you expect? If you are going to continue throwing your spears at the people here they will retaliate. If you do not like it, well, stay over at unSP where you fit right in with the rest of the cattle
Adriel @ 4
You’re way out of your depth here. You keep throwing right-wing cliches around when you’re cornered. It’s really tiresome.
Why don’t you go over to the echo chamber at (u)SP and cheerlead for the zealots over there?
scottd @ 2
Are you the same guy who the Snark ad-hominen’ed after you pointed out the flaws in the his KC elections analysis? If so, great work!
Eat Me … you sure have a lot of class. You should be really proud of that line, in fact your mother’s probably really proud too!
John: That was me — thanks.
Side point: You can get documents from government agencies under the Open Records section of the PDA, but ONLY IF the agency decides to provide the records. Otherwise, the PDA isn’t worth the paper it is printed on.
Yes, I know all about good faith, the per-record penalties, attorneys fees, and so forth. However, I had a front row seat when a group of citizens tried to force the City of Kent to disclose some damning public records, and I can assure you that the King County Superior Court will not enforce the PDA and that Div. I of the Court of Appeals is even worse.
And the Public Disclosure Commission is no better. After these citizens caught Kent Mayor Jim White violating campaign laws by soliciting campaign funds from Kent City employees, the PDC’s staff cut a deal with White’s attorney to get him off the hook. The PDC didn’t go along and slapped White with its maximim penalty. However, when we asked for the emails related to this shady deal, the PDC claimed that they were protected by attorney-client privilege. How the PDC staff and White’s attorney formed an attorney-client relationship is beyond me.
Bottom line: If you want records that an agency doesn’t want to disclose, you will soon learn that the Open Records section of the PDA is a sad farce.
Brenda — Ow! I’m sorry for your unfortunate experiences, but please don’t piss all over every government institution. Yes, there are thousands of state and local gov’t managers who don’t understand the Open Public Records Act and many more who act in bad faith. But we, the citizenry, not only outnumber those folks, but we pay their salaries. We won’t win every one, but we’ll fight to the bitter end to ensure that government — for good or ill — is done where sunlight shines on it. Please do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of the Washington state SPJ’s indespensible ACCESS manual, which shouldn’t cost more than $5 and postage at http://www.spjwash.org. Not only does it help you write a public records request (or FOIA, if you’re going the federal route), but it also has guidelines on how to best get gov’t agencies to respond expeditiously (get some practice and you can even make them your bitch).
Brenda, be skeptical. Fine. But don’t discourage others from participating in the process. The demoralizing results of untimely citizen apathy has cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars on U.S. soil and abroad.
BORING!
Brenda–
The Public Disclosure Commission was forced to pay BIAW around $19,000 or so a couple years ago for violating the law on a Public Records request. Check it out!!
BIAW kicked the PDC’s ASS and were forced to cough up the bucks. Apparently BIAW has a copy of the check on the wall!!
It is very important for folks to fight to get legitimate public records. If denied, hopefully they have the resources to force compliance.
GOLDY, your BIAW buddies did the public a favor when the PDC didn’t follow the law. Or is it ok with you for Public Entities to deny legitimate public records requests if it’s BIAW??
Take a look at the PDC/BIAW issue. It shows exactly why taxpayers & business desperately need Trade Associations able to hold government accountable.
so how many hits do you get a week on this site? Just wondered….
excuse me, excuse me gentlemen, I expect some good home training from you.
And I, King Ron Sims hereby grant you permission to cut down your very own blackberry bushes once you obtain a permit for $500.
Make the check payable to: Friends of Ron Sims 2005
Capitol Idealist, we properly filed our PDA requests, and ONLY AFTER we researched the statutes and read each and every PDA case decision. In other words, we did our research and relied on the written law, not some convenient summary of the PDA. However, and as the recent (and unrelated) case involving the King County stadium fiasco shows, the PDA is essentially unenforceable in King County Superior Court. Perhaps you will agree that any law that requires an appeal to the Supreme Court to enforce really isn’t much of a law.
I’m guessing that the BIAW request to the PDC was filed in Thurston County, and I have no experience with those courts. However, it occurs to me that an organization with clout (like the BIAW) might get a better response from the courts than we did as mere powerless citizens.
Capitol Idealist, after more thought (always a good idea), I agree with you that it is unfair to condemn all government agencies based on our experiences. I suspect that most agencies are not engaged in misconduct and have no reason to hide records. The UW is a prime example of an agency that does respond well to PDA requests, although we should note that they had to be sued several times before they adopted their present cooperative policy.
So here’s my PDA “enemies list:”
City of Kent
City of Des Moines
King County Prosecutors Office
City of Stanwood
KC Superior Court Judge Dean S. Lum
KC Superior Court Judge Terence “Terry” Lukens
The Des Moines case is particularly interesting. Rather than disclose the tape of a DM Municipal Court hearing where Kent City Manager J. Brent McFall was charged with violating a protective order against his ex-wife, the Des Moines City Attorney erased the tape of the eharing rather than turning it over and admitted doing so in open court. This was OK with the Court of Appeals (Div. I), who found no violation of the PDA. Truly incredible and utterly shameless.
Someone NEEDS to audit City of DesMoines. They clearly cannot manage their money, or their projects.
I-900 Performance Audits, “A good thing”
“I-900, yet another unecessary Tim Eyman sledghammer to solve a problem that requires a countersink.”
Chardonnay – Eyman’s initiative will cost the state an order of magnitude more than it ever has the hope of saving. Support the legislative process and the representative democracy (the Republic) you live in. The bipartisan support for audits has a real chance to pass a bill with reasonable costs that accomplishes most (if not all) of what I-900 purports to do, only at a fraction of the cost.
JC @ 21
There are two aspects of Eyman’s bill that should be in the state’s version:
One, more authority for the state auditor.
Two, the ability to audit county, local and quasi-governmental agencies.
The only thing I’m not sure of is if the Leg can do the latter without some sort of public authority (like an initiative).
Mark @22
The auditor supports the House bill… it gives him all the authority he wants. And it also gives him the power conduct performance audits on local agencies, if requested by the local government. It just doesn’t make them mandatory.
Goldy @ 23
And it also gives him the power conduct performance audits on local agencies, if requested by the local government. [emphasis mine]
That would be like the Average Joe calling up the IRS and saying, “hey, would you guys mind coming over here and digging through my finances for the past few years?”
As they say in the UK, not bloody likely!
Who, for example, could/would call for the audit of Sound Transit? I’m not an ST hater, but I sure don’t like what I’ve read in the MSM. Lots of money spent and we’re… nowhere.