How we can halt the erosion of government transparency

Zoning issues often are controversial and can be high-stakes and high-interest. Even the most well-intended elected official might be tempted to grease the skids outside the public eye, send a text that disappears, consult with colleagues in a phone tree.

My first brush with such government secrecy was in the late 1980s when the Walla Walla County Commission was considering a zoning conflict. I was the Union-Bulletin’s business reporter covering the developer’s intention to build the county’s first regional mall between the cities of Walla Walla and College Place.

The race was on! Which jurisdiction would annex the property sure to infuse coffers with new sales tax collections?

Commissioners were scheduled to meet in the afternoon in front of a crowd. But that morning, a colleague called and told me to get to the courthouse right away. Working his beat, he noticed a door ajar. He discovered all three of the commissioners getting their stories straight outside the public eye — in an unadvertised, secret and illegal meeting.

I ran the few blocks and then dutifully took notes as the commissioners explained — or rather, implicated — themselves.

“Yeah, we did it. Shouldn’t have,” I remember the shrugging chairman saying.

Delish!

Too often, constituents never find out about such collusion or obfuscation, yet they live with the results.

On Thursday, the Washington Coalition for Open Government published a guidebook of sorts: “Your Right to Know: A special report on the erosion of public access to government information in Washington state.” (Full disclosure: I am a coalition board member.)

The 74-page report lays out an inventory of abuses by governments at all levels. Some egregious, some merely clueless, some passive aggressive and some the result of bad training. It also makes recommendations.

In the report’s conclusion, WashCOG President Mike Fancher recalls the last time voters weighed in on the matter. In 1972, a whopping 72% of voters approved Initiative 276, a portion of which became part of the state Public Records Act.

He also noted the public’s muscular uprising in 2019 when the state Legislature hastily passed a bill to exempt itself from the public records law. A dozen newspapers, including this one, ran front-page editorials asking the governor to veto the bill, and more than 20,000 people called or emailed Gov. Jay Inslee. He did. Three of the Legislature’s four caucuses issued statements that they would not attempt an override.

The people won!

“Nothing is more important to keeping the government open and accountable than public activism,” said Fancher, who is The Times’ retired executive editor. “When the people speak, politicians listen.”

But erosion continues.

The people’s public records initiative? That law had a dozen reasonable exemptions for issues that could be heard in a closed meetings, such as for personnel issues and real-estate transactions. In the 52 years since, the Legislature has added well more than 650 exemptions.

The Legislature’s allegiance to your right to know? Within the last year, lawmakers, mostly from the House Democratic caucus, have started invoking something called “legislative privilege” to keep documents away from the public eye. That assertion is being litigated.

(To his credit, Gov. Inslee has pledged never to invoke his executive privilege — and never has in his 11 years in office.)

Vigilance is necessary to beat back these challenges to people’s access to government meetings and records. Fancher asks citizens to encourage their lawmakers to read the report and to ask them if they will invoke legislative privilege. I know The Times editorial board will again be asking candidates about that this election season.

Back to the Walla Walla commish. Walla Walla won the annexation race. And the Union-Bulletin, which is owned by The Seattle Times Company, sued the commissioners for their transgressions. They each paid $100 to the U-B, all of which the U-B contributed back to the county treasury.

We made a point, yes. But I often wondered if they learned their lesson.

Last year, I suggested in a column that Washington needs another voter-enacted open-government law. Better it doesn’t come to that.

But lawmakers and other public officials need to follow not just the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law. That is the better course and there’s plenty of evidence that’s what their constituents want.