By Joanne Huist Smith
Dayton Daily New
ELLIS JACOBS of Dayton-based Advocates for Basic Legal Equality,
says access to public records can make a significant difference in the lives
of residents and it's the law.
Auditors requesting information from local governments, police and school districts recently were denied unconditional and prompt access to routine records nearly half of the time.
"It would be my hope that the public becomes outraged," said House Judiciary Chairman Scott Oelslager, R-Canton. "These are the people's records. These records were paid for with tax dollars."
The audit by the Ohio Coalition for Open Government took place mostly on April 21. More than 90 people from 43 newspapers, The Associated Press, two radio stations and two colleges asked to see public records in all of Ohio's 88 counties. The coalition was established by the Ohio Newspaper Association, a trade organization that represents 83 daily and 163 weekly newspapers.
Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro said that while many county and local governments operate with minimal resources, their obligation to respond to residents' requests for public information does not disappear because of size or staffing.
"The records requested in this audit are clearly public in nature and, when available, should have been provided in a timely manner," Petro said. "I am a firm believer that our democracy thrives, in part, because of the openness of government."
The records sought included minutes from the most recent county commissioners' meeting. In each county seat, auditors asked for the mayor's or city council president's expense report, the school superintendent's and police chief's salaries and the school treasurer's most recent telephone bill. Auditors also asked for police incident reports from the most recent shift available and to get one copy.
In 4 percent of the 491 requests, local government or school officials claimed the document sought was not a public record. Auditors were denied the records in a timely manner almost 16 percent of the time.
"These results are pathetic, especially when the records requested are non-controversial, definitely open public records," Oelslager said.
Oelslager, an advocate for open government, worked with Common Cause of Ohio in 1993 to develop legislation expanding the state's open records law. He wanted to make it easier and less costly for Ohio residents to obtain public records.
The bill neared passage but died in the Senate after interest groups and former Gov. George Voinovich's administration expressed concerns about the cost of the changes and the "undue burden" they could place on state agencies.
"All we can do is keep the efforts up," Oelslager said. "A key to our democracy is the public's right to be informed."
State Rep. Jon Husted, R-Kettering, said the audit results were disappointing but not surprising. Like the Ohio Coalition for Open Government auditors, Husted said he does not identify himself when seeking public records. He tries to experience the request process the same as other taxpayers.
"We all need to remember we do work for the public and the things we work on are public information," Husted said.
Some public employees are afraid their bosses will disapprove if they give out public information, Husted said. Others believe that if they don't respond to the initial request, the person seeking information will just go away, he said.
"Everybody needs to do a better job of informing front-line staff in respect to what the law is," he said.
Republican state Sen. Jeff Jacobson of Butler Twp. said Ohio's public records' law too often comes down to "one person trying to enforce the law against an entire bureaucracy saying 'no.' "
"You can write all the laws you want, but if you're not the one wanting the information you don't know how the law is being carried out," he said. "We need to ask what, if any, tools people need to do that, that they don't have now?"
Dwight Crum, spokesman for House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, said the audit results were unacceptable.
"We want to review the report and talk to local government groups about the findings," Crum said. Democratic House Minority Leader Chris Redfern, D-Catawba Island, said organizations such as the Ohio Municipal League and the County Commissioners Association of Ohio need to better educate their members on the law.
The bottom line for Ellis Jacobs of Dayton-based Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, is that access to public records can absolutely make a difference in the lives of Ohio residents and it's the law.
Access to public records gave residents of Jefferson Twp. in Montgomery County the information they needed to thwart the Army's plan to ship neutralized VX nerve agent to a treatment plant in their neighborhood, Jacobs said. Now, that neighborhood, which he represents, battles to force that same hazardous wastewater treatment plant, Perma-Fix Inc., 300 West End Ave., to stop foul odors wafting from its smokestacks.
Jacobs said the city of Moraine also recently tried to charge a $150 processing fee for a public records request regarding displacement of two trailer parks in the city. The law says public agencies can charge only for the cost of producing copies.
"The average citizen, who doesn't know the law, could have been deterred by that," Jacobs said. "We ignored the letter and went out and got the documents."
Access to public records is a critical check for residents to gauge what the government is doing, he said.
When government offices fail to provide access to open records, that creates "a big problem," Jacobs said, "It's basically dereliction of a very important duty."
Catherine Turcer, legislative liaison for Ohio Citizen Action — one of the state's largest environmental organizations — said the audit findings were better than she would have expected. She said the Franklin County Board of Elections told her in March 2003 that a request for campaign contributions to appeals court judges from a 2002 election would have to wait six weeks, until after the May primary.
"I was appalled: Six weeks," Turcer said. "This was not a complicated report. It wasn't available on a Web site. It wasn't available anyplace else."