“We the people” is the opening phrase of the U.S. Constitution that sets the tone for how our nation and national government saw itself. It signifies that all Americans, from president to members of Congress to small-town mayors and average citizens, have equal access to our government.
That too means that citizens, regardless of status or station, should be able to see what any government agency is doing.
Sunday, March 14, to Saturday, March 20, is Sunshine Week, when news agencies around the country celebrate wins that have made government more transparent and also warn readers and viewers about government attempts to hide public information.
Sunshine Week 2021 came after a year of COVID-19 pandemic coverage. Newspaper reporters, radio correspondents, television reporters and online journalists ramped up our output over the last 12 months covering the news reports about outbreaks, quarantines, closure orders and the shortages of ventilators, surgical masks and protective equipment for our doctors, nurses, paramedics and first responders, the political debate between pandemic responses on the local, state and national levels, and the rollout of the first vaccines to combat this disease and return our lives back to normal — or as normal as we can be in a world where blizzards shut down Texas, the Kardashians are a thing and GameStop stock skyrockets in value.
It is the right of every American citizen to know what our elected and appointed officials are doing. They work for salaries paid by our taxes in offices also paid for by tax dollars.
By design, we should know how they are spending our tax dollars, whether it’s educating our children, fighting crime or fires in equipment we paid for, setting up statewide or nationwide programs or policies for our progeny, or going to war on our behalf on foreign soil.
According to the Associated Press, public records have become harder to get since the pandemic. AP reporter David A. Lieb notes that governors, legislatures and local officials have suspended or ignored laws setting deadlines to respond to records requests, citing obstacles for staffers who are working at home or are overwhelmed with crisis management, meaning information that once took a few days or weeks to obtain now often takes months — depriving the public of facts.
AP reporter Stephan Groves reports that governors in Arkansas, California, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey and North Dakota have thwarted their states’ records requests about coronavirus issues by citing exemptions, making it difficult for voters in those states to hold their leaders accountable.
Meanwhile, public records requests and investigations into the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, revealed his office released misleading information about COVID-19 case counts in his state’s nursing homes — highlighting the importance of sharing government records with the public especially in a public health crisis.
Excluding national security matters, every document produced by or stored by local, state and the federal government, every email and text message sent from a government official, should be accessible at any time by members of the public, yet there are slews of state and federal laws to protect the public’s right to know because some government officials often don’t want what they say and do made public, so other officials had to force them to be transparent by law.
Over the years, journalists at Larson Newspapers have had to file Freedom of Information Act requests of federal and state agencies or Arizona open records laws requests for local governments to obtain documents to inform our readers.
More often than not, local agencies freely provide journalists and the public with records we request because it’s easy to be forthright with the media and the public. Perhaps in part, it’s because filing a formal open records law request will only delay the inevitable and, in the interim, embarrass the official and department who tried to deny the request because when American citizens don’t get public records we are entitled to, we are rarely quiet about it.
For instance, Yavapai County District 3 Supervisor Donna Michaels’ Executive Assistant, Sally Jackson, improperly redacted numerous lawful public records in response to a public records request filed March 6. Jackson stated “some information was redacted from the original disclosure due to administrative oversight.” When asked to provide unredacted versions of these records for lawful and legal newsgathering purposes, Jackson refused, falsely claiming “Everything subject to disclosure has been disclosed.”
When asked to provide these records or cite what state law would allow Jackson to withhold this name, Jackson refused answer and inform the public what information she might be unlawfully withholding. When asked about if the individual “Is he or she a campaign donor?” Executive Assistant Sally Jackson refused to answer. When asked if the individual who sent “How much did this person give to Michael’s campaign?” Executive Assistant Sally Jackson refused to answer.
Jackson represents her supervisor and the county, meaning her actions reflect poorly on both the supervisor who employs her and the county administration that pays salary, both of which will be remembered by constituents as well as at election time.
That being said, no government officials should seek to hide information from the public. They should demand transparency more strongly than we do because it affects their job directly.
Remember that government records are your records — officials are merely the caretakers of what you already own. We are the government and the government is us.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
