Indifference risks loss of access to public records
By The Herald Editorial Board
Like sundials, democracy works poorly without sunshine. Washington residents may soon see much less of that sunlight shining on the work of state and local government.
Washington state’s Sunshine Committee — responsible for reviewing and helping to clear away the clouds of exemptions that block the release of government information through public records requests — may have seen its last Sunshine Week, the annual national celebration of the public’s right to know about the workings of government.
After 16 years of work to protect and more fully enable that right, citizen representatives on the 13-member committee are questioning the value of the effort being put into its review and recommendations regarding an ever-growing list of attempts to lock away that information. The committee briefly discussed its dissolution at its February meeting, but voted to put off further discussion and a decision until its May 23 meeting when it may recommend to the Legislature that the committee be dissolved.
Not because those members don’t see the value in the work they’re doing, but because few among the members of the Legislature or in the offices of the state attorney general or the governor currently appear to recognize the value of the Sunshine Committee’s efforts or the need to follow up with implementation of the committee’s findings.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/editorial-indifference-risks-loss-of-access-to-public-records/
