Feb 12, 2007 Olympia Editorial

Below is link to, and text of, editorial in today's Olympian:

http://www.theolympian.com/109/story/65128.html



Published February 12, 2007
Court says a hefty fine is warranted

In a strongly worded 3-0 decision last week the state court of appeals said that when government jurisdictions refuse to turn over public records, they must be held accountable. And not just a slap on the wrist. Hefty fines are in order.

The appellate court decision is a rebuke of the King County Superior Court judges who have handed out only minor financial penalties in a case where King County officials refused to turn over financial records on Qwest Field, a publicly financed football stadium for the Seattle Seahawks.

Maybe on this, the third attempt, a King County Superior Court judge will uphold the state’s Public Disclosure Act and fine the county a meaningful amount of money commensurate with the violation of the law.

In their unanimous decision appellate justices C. Kenneth Grosse, William Baker and Anne Ellington said, “The purpose of Washington’s Public Disclosure Act is best served by basing penalties principally on the degree of the offending agency’s culpability. Because King County’s conduct in this case was grossly negligent, a penalty at the low end of the statutory range is unsustainable.” In other words the punishment should fit the crime.

Good for the appellate court justices. It’s about time someone in this drawn out court battle got serious and held King County Executive Ron Simms and his staff accountable for their gross negligence.

It’s also a victory for the little guy. Few people in this state had ever heard of Armen Yousoufian before his much publicized efforts to pry records out of King County offices. His target: economic impact studies done on the $325 million football stadium, financed by taxpayers. Yousoufian, a private business owner, had every right to those public records. But King County officials only reluctantly turned over the records and then on a piecemeal basis. Frustrated with four years of delay, Yousoufian filed suit.

King County Superior Court Judge Kathleen Learned sided with Yousoufian but awarded him only $5 for each day the records were not turned over to him. And she “bundled” the records versus forcing the county to pay the maximum fine of $100 per day per record.

Learned’s ruling was a slap in Yousoufian’s face. He appealed.

The Court of Appeals and the state Supreme Court agreed that the fine was too low. The case went back to King County where a new Superior Court judge, Michael Hayden, upped the ante — slightly — in 2005. He assessed a $15 per day fine, an amount totalling $300,000.

Not good enough, Yousoufian said. He appealed again and again the Division 1 Court of Appeals panel has agreed with him.

Lower court and appellate court judges have said King County employees’ conduct in this case was grossly negligent. The fine needs to match that negligence. This decision reminds public officials that they are the mere custodians of records. The records themselves belong to the public and the public has a right to inspect them in a timely manner.

A hefty fine in the Yousoufian case will drive that point home to every elected and appointed official and their employees. It’s just too bad King County officials get to use taxpayer money to pay the penalty. If public employees had to pay the fines out of their own pocket, compliance with public records laws might be a little better in this state.

©2007 The Olympian

Comments:

Gee, isn't this cute? Fine the King County Communist Party (oops.) democratic party machine, the King County council and executive for not turning over public documents. Who gets punished here? The taxpayer!

How about some jail time and actually punish the culpible individuals! Ooops, a socially progress judicial branch hold a democrat accountable, personally, for a wrong doing. Now that is really a joke.
The Fisherman 02.12.07 - 9:33 am #
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What the editorial fails to mention is that this case is in its 10th anniversary! After 10 years of stalling, Sims et al can claim victory because the information is no longer relevant and the public pays the tab. Make such behavior automatic grounds for recall and then, perhaps, those who are in charge will take the public records law seriously.
Shawn Newman 02.12.07 - 7:38 am #