Lawmakers have moved out of the House Local Government Committee a bill that aims to limit public records requests for local agencies.
The bill passed out of committee with a 5-4 vote and a few changes. The most notable is the elimination of being able to charge commercial requesters for the actual cost of fulfilling a request.
“This is the best reception we’ve ever had for the public disclosure requests,” Commissioner Bill Schulte said about the legislation.
Lewis County commissioners and city officials within the county are anxious for the bill to move forward and provide some relief from broad public records requests that they say are taking up time and money.
At a Friday meeting with mayors from throughout the county, commissioners discussed public records as their main legislative priority.
Last month, Brian Green, who unsuccessfully ran for Lewis County sheriff in 2014, filed a request with the county asking for records from the past three years referring to former sheriff Steve Mansfield.
Karri Muir, clerk for the commissioners, said the request affects all departments and employees and their personal phone and computer devices if they have records that apply to the request.
Any text messages will have to be transcribed and notarized.
So far, an estimated 400,000 emails have been identified that need to be examined for redaction for the request, she said.
Schulte said the request will cost “hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
He said the county is considering hiring two employees to handle records requests.
The Chehalis School District is considering making a part-time position full-time, in part to handle a large request it received in January for “any and all” communication going in and out of the superintendent’s office during the past three years.
Superintendent Ed Rothlin told The Chronicle so far the emails alone are close to 500,000.
“We’re all about transparency,” Rothlin said, adding that specific requests are much easier to respond to than broad ones.
Rothlin said the district doesn’t even really know where to begin to respond to the request, but will fulfill it accurately so the requester gets his information and personal information is protected.
“This is just a cost to the district, which is a cost to the taxpayers,” he said.
Rothlin said the district doesn’t typically get many records requests, and when it does, they are much more specific.
Pe Ell Mayor Lonnie Willey said the town recently had a request for all of the town marshal's activity in the past year, which resulted in 500 to 600 pages of records.
Willey said because the requester chose to review the records at Town Hall, the town couldn’t charge for any page costs.
“It’s frustrating,” he said about obscure requests.
Chehalis Mayor Dennis Dawes said the city hasn’t dealt with any “fishing” requests, but suspects it will eventually.
“I don’t know why there can’t be a common-sense approach,” Dawes said.
At a public hearing on the bill last week, Commissioner Edna Fund and representatives with other public agencies throughout the state spoke in favor of action to limit or prevent costly and time consuming requests. The bill met opposition from media and data collection organizations.
The Local Government Committee approved a substitute to the bill, making some changes to the original bill.
The substitute in the bill eliminates the section in the original bill allowing local agencies to charge commercial organizations for the cost of processing the request.
The substitute would also allow local agencies to adopt procedures limiting the number of hours it spends each month responding to requests and prioritizing requests according to criteria determined by the local agency.
Priorities should be based on requests involving threats to public safety, imminent legislative, administrative or judicial action or routine or immediately accessible.
The bill still calls for the establishment of a Public Records Commission to handle disputes between requesters and agencies, but the substitute allows for it to limit the number of instances it takes part in due to funding.
The commission would also be required to employ an attorney to represent citizens.
The primary bill sponsor is Joan McBride, Democrat for the 48th District. Sixteen other lawmakers signed onto the bill.
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Information from The Associated Press was used in this article.
