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Sunday, December 31, 2006

Open & Shut: Portsmouth works hard to open records

"Portsmouth deserves credit for trying to do the right thing," said an activist who advocates for open government.

By Jen McCaffery
The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot

Testing access to Virginia's public records

Stories

Success rate: About 50 percent

Message board

About this project

Virginia's newspapers and The Associated Press set up a test to gauge how well the state's local governments respond to requests for public records from average citizens.

Beginning Sept. 12, more than 120 Virginians who were employed by news organizations visited city and county government offices seeking information that is public under the state Freedom of Information Act . The data collectors, who included reporters, editors, interns and others, asked for the following:

  • The most recent two weeks of e-mail correspondence between a city's mayor and other city council members or between the county chairman and the county board of supervisors.
  • The previous weekend's daily crime log or felony incidents information, as kept by police or sheriff's departments.
  • The most recent fire inspection reports for two schools, usually a high school and an elementary school. The records first were requested from each local government's fire department.

The individuals requesting the information identified themselves only as citizens. The reason was to test if the average Virginian, without benefit of any affiliation, could obtain information that is supposed to be equally accessible to all people in the state. The data collectors were instructed not to lie or misrepresent themselves in any way.

Under state law, a government official can ask someone for his or her name and address. However, government officials cannot bar people from obtaining a public record if they decline to say where they work or why they want to examine it.

— Associated Press

Open government

    Representatives of news organizations visited all 134 Virginia cities and counties seeking access to crime reports, e-mails between elected officials, and school fire inspection reports. Here are the localities where all three requests for public information were granted.

  • Cities: Alexandria, Bedford, Charlottesville, Portsmouth, Radford and Winchester.
  • Counties: Albemarle, Charlotte, Greene, New Kent, Prince George, Scott and Wise.

PORTSMOUTH -- For about two years, community activist Terry Danaher has used Virginia's Freedom of Information Act to find out what is going on in her city.

Danaher said she started to file formal requests for information under the act because she wasn't getting the information she wanted about the city's downtown outdoor amphitheater, NTelos Pavilion at Harbor Center, and other topics directly from city officials.

But in recent months, Danaher noticed a change.

She e-mailed City Manager James Oliver to ask for an update on Willett Hall, a city auditorium, and for a new report on the homeless.

Oliver responded immediately and asked Deputy City Manager Lydia Pettis Patton to get back to Danaher. Shortly thereafter Danaher and Patton met, and she was given the information.

"My feeling is that there is a certain openness that was missing in the past," Danaher said.

She's right, say Portsmouth city officials who have actively worked in recent years to make it easier for citizens to access public records by developing and instructing their staff to be more open in releasing government information.

"Anything that we have here doesn't belong to us, it belongs to the public," said Portsmouth spokesman Kenneth Wheeler.

The city's open approach was evident when it was one of the most accessible localities for public records in Virginia, according to findings from the statewide audit.

Representatives of news organizations visited all 134 Virginia cities and counties seeking access to crime reports, e-mails between elected officials, and school fire inspection reports.

Portsmouth is one of only 13 localities where all three requests for public information were granted.

"Portsmouth deserves credit for trying to do the right thing," said Frosty Landon, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government. "I know its city attorney is not one of the commonwealth's best supporters of the Freedom of Information Act. He's putting his personal feelings aside and doing the right thing."
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