Letter to Editor | OIFR is not timely in fulfilling public records requests

||| FROM BRIAN EHRMANTRAUT |||

Orcas Fire has a problem with Public Records Act compliance. Hopefully they can learn to do better in the future.

Nearly two months ago, I made a very simple request for public records from Orcas Fire, (San Juan County Fire District #2). I merely asked for the list of Public Records Acts requests for the previous 12 months. It should have taken the District very little effort and time to respond to this, if they were properly organized and motivated to service Public Records requests. I still, as of writing this note, do not have the records. This makes the records, if they are ever produced, not-timely for the purposes they were needed for.

This is simply unacceptable. Two months for such a trivial request does not smell like transparency in government to me. The Public Records Act sets out penalties for non-compliance, and lays out a process in Court to proceed. The District is in danger of costing the taxpayers considerable money and time if they continue on this course. You may wish to contact your Fire Commissioners about this.

To submit your own Public Records requests to the District, you can email your specific request to info@orcasfire.org  Micki Nichols is the current Public Records Officer.

I wish to draw your attention to the WA Public Records act, RCW 42.56.030:

“The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies that serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may maintain control over the instruments that they have created. This chapter shall be liberally construed and its exemptions narrowly construed to promote this public policy and to assure that the public interest will be fully protected.”

Request Timeline:

• 11/18/2021 Submitted request
• 11/18/2021 The Public Records Officer from OIFR responded and told me they would notify me on or before 12/17/2021 as to the status of my request and whether they would need to extend the date.
• 12/17/2021 They sent an email informing me they would need to extend the date to 1/8/2021
• 1/7/2022 They sent an email informing me they would need to extend the date to January 17, 2022.
• 1/7/2022 When I responded, suggesting that the actions so far seemed to be well outside the promptness requirements of RCW 42.56.520, they responded with a list of excuses about how difficult it was to honor this simple request.