This month the South Whidbey School District moved forward with a policy of identifying online people who make public records requests. Their names, what they asked for, and the estimated time and expense of fulfilling the requests are detailed.
So? Who cares? The information is public anyway. Taxpayers should know everything about the agencies they fund. And as school board members say, anyone with a legitimate request shouldn’t be afraid to put their name behind it.
On the surface all the above sounds right, but if it is then why does it feel so wrong? The answer is because it is wrong.
At its core, this new policy is about curbing public records requests, and its weapons are embarrassment and intimidation cloaked in a sheath of transparency. The Open Public Records Act may not be perfect, leaving government vulnerable to abusive requesters, but manipulating its intent specifically to counteract its purpose is as much of a perversion of the law as those who seek to use it as a tool to hurt public agencies.
School officials say that public shaming or retaliation are not the goal, that the practice is simply a means of keeping the board and the public informed about how administrators are spending their time and district resources when it comes to public records requests. Perhaps this is so, but actions speak louder than words and this shouts something else.
For one, if informing the board about a financial burden was truly the only purpose, all that would be required to do so is the “what” — details, such as the request, time and expense. The “who” wouldn’t matter.
It’s only important if the goal is to add a measure of accountability. And school board directors have already let that cat out of the bag with comments about how “with right comes responsibility,” and how this is the perfect response to abusive requesters. Furthermore, consistent references to Eric Hood, the former teacher who’s suing the district and is blamed for wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, in context with the new policy make it clear that he’s at the heart of the new practice.
It’s certainly not because the board’s been besieged with records requests — less than one per month in the past year, according to the district’s own online document.
Also, it’s hard to claim the intent is to be more transparent when the district isn’t posting the results of records requests online. Many documents sought are electronic documents, and it would be an easy step to include them on the district’s website. Doing so would actually reduce future workloads.
Make no mistake, this policy isn’t greater public transparency. It’s about one man school administrators and board members have identified as a troublemaker and it’s meant as a warning to anyone else who might dare to squander the precious time and resources of the district.
Our state’s sunshine laws are demanding, and can at times place undue burden on our governments, but in the end, these institutions exist to serve us, even when it’s inconvenient or deemed superfluous.
This policy needs to be removed, or overhauled so it actually does the public good.
