Every year as spring and summer approach, fire officials warn residents to create “defensible space” around homes in order to prevent against the hazard of brush fires.
The idea is that while you can’t prevent a blaze from occurring, you can minimize the risk of damage by clearing away clutter, cutting down tall grass and eliminating any fuel for a potential fire.
At The Chronicle, we apply a similar principle to the enforcement of the state’s laws aimed at guaranteeing transparency in government.
We can’t prevent all missteps by elected officials or the occasional failure to release public documents in a timely matter, but we can certainly protect and guard our defensible space, and we’ve been doing that for more than 125 years. The boundaries are our coverage area, which extends from south Thurston County to north Cowlitz County and from Pe Ell to White Pass.
Dotting that landscape are dozens of city, school, county and port governments, in addition to the leaders we choose to represent us in Olympia as state lawmakers.
That’s a lot of ground to cover for a small town newspaper such as The Chronicle, but day in and day out, we arrive to run that race and work to make sure residents are never deprived of information of importance to them.
In Washington, we’re blessed to have strong laws when it comes to government transparency in the form of both the Open Public Meetings and at the Public Records Act. As with any law, though, these only work if they’re enforced.
The Chronicle carries out that duty in numerous ways, from attending gatherings of public officials morning, noon and night to filing public records requests when appropriate. Unlike some private residents, we don’t seek money through settlements with public governments when missteps are discovered, though residents are certainly entitled to damages by the law.
Our work resulted in the Lewis County commissioners amending their policy on public meetings after previously passing a resolution that made every work day at the courthouse a public meeting from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. After The Chronicle’s reporting, the policy was changed. Likewise, we raised our voices in protest when the state Legislature attempted to make its records exempt from the law.
In both case, all it took was public awareness, and that is often the case when it comes to creating transparency.
It has been said that sunlight is the best disinfectant.
That deserves repeating as we continue through Sunshine Week, a designated time when newspapers and other first amendment advocates highlight the importance of public meetings and public records.
This week, The Chronicle will be filing a flurry of records requests to mark the occasion as we continue to do our best in ensuring your access to the government you elect to represent you.
We’ll report on our findings as we continue the work of protecting our defensible space here in Southwest Washington.
