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The state Office of Open Records released its annual report, on 2022 activity, this week, noting in a media release that the timing deliberately coincided with Sunshine Week. We are, of course, huge proponents of the open meetings and open records laws that promote greater transparency in government.
The report shows that, since 2009, 2022 was the third busiest year for the OOR, handling 2,876 appeals. The most appeals were filed the previous year, in 2021, with 2,990. The number of appeals has nearly tripled since 2009, the first and lowest year in the report data, 1,155.
Those are not particularly surprising numbers. As more people learned about the ability to appeal local government denial of record or information requests, appeals naturally went up. The COVID-19 pandemic may account for 2021 and 2022 having two of the three highest years: A lot of people became active in school board and municipal meetings when mask mandates and other life-altering decisions were made in confronting the disease.
But it may be more surprising to some to see the data on who filed appeals. The number one group, by far, was everyday citizens, responsible for 57% of the appeals.
“Companies and private organizations” come in a distant second with 25.3%. Prison inmates come in third at 12.8%. And media comes in fourth at 4.4%. (Another 0.3%, representing nine appeals, were filed by government officials).
We suspect the low number of appeals from media are due in part to the unfortunate decline in the size of staff in many media outlets. It may sound self-serving coming from us, but we truly believe the country is poorly served by the steep drop in local media reporters available to keep tabs on local government actions — where the proverbial rubber meets the road.
But the small percentage of media appeals may also stem from the greater resources seasoned reporters bring to the effort of getting information. Since they do it for a living at least five days a week, reporters often know where to look and what, exactly, to ask for, making it harder for government officials to have justifiable grounds for denying a records request.
Good reporters also, of course, develop good sources. One government official may want to keep some facts buried while another wants them aired.
But we think it’s a positive to see the majority of open records appeals come from regular people. In the end, they are the ones the open records and open meetings laws should serve.
Citizens also benefited from a change in state law that requires government entities post agendas online at least 24 hours before public meetings. Frankly, this was long overdue. While we have newsroom reporters who appreciate being able to essentially “pre-write” the nuts and bolts of a meeting story based on the agenda — potentially shortening the time needed to finish the report after the meeting — the real winner should be the voter or stakeholder who gets to see what’s up for discussion or a vote before the meeting, and thus can attend meetings better informed and prepared.
It is and always will be essential that we use all the legal tools available to keep governments at all levels accountable. Regardless of what you think about the Washington Post, the outlet got it right when it adopted the current slogan.
Democracy really does die in darkness.