Adherence to FOA law not the greatest

To many readers, the findings of a Nov.19 audit of public agencies by a consortium of media outlets and public advocacy groups seeking to determine how Maine’s Right to Know law is working were probably about as surprising as the outcome of one of those inane government studies showing, say, that eating toxic waste three times daily can be hazardous to your health.

Often flouted by bureaucrats, the law seems a good candidate for a new set of teeth. More than a third of the 74 Maine police departments surveyed illegally refused to let auditors see the previous day’s police log. The 79 school superintendents’ offices surveyed did little better. The 157 town offices contacted seemed to be the most enlightened about the state’s Freedom of Access Act, possibly because they have greater daily contact with the inquiring masses.

When I read Wednesday’s first installment of the three-part series by BDN reporter Jeff Tuttle, it brought to mind my long-ago introduction to Maine: The Way Things Simply Are in the continuing war between press and intransigent officialdom involving freedom of access to public documents.

My Mission Impossible, should I choose to accept it, was to ferret out some information about a convoluted and complicated lawsuit involving the regional airport. My first stop: The county courthouse. My first roadblock: A sweet little old county clerk who had manned the ramparts since Methuselah was a mere lad, and didn’t cotton to nosey newspaper reporters eyeballing “her” records.

As I recall, the conversation ran somewhat like this:

Me: “Could I see the file on the airport lawsuit, please?”

She: “What for?”

Me: “I’ve been assigned to write a story updating the situation, and I…”

She: “Oh, you wouldn’t understand it if I showed it to you…”

Me: “Try me, sweetheart.”

And so on, and so forth, until I triumphed and, sighing dramatically and rolling her eyes heavenward, my aggrieved hostess reluctantly traipsed into the bowels of her inner sanctum to retrieve the material. (Let the record show that the two of us eventually became rather fond of one another, despite the inauspicious beginning, and a marvelous working relationship ensued. It was, I think, testimony to the time-honored maxim that one can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. And you know me: Nothing but unadulterated honey, spread thick and piled high.)

To some readers, Tuttle’s series may appear to be just another example of the media’s eternal whining about the unpleasantries that come with the territory it has staked out for itself. It is of little consequence to anyone else, they might conclude. But they’d be dead wrong.

News reporters may serve as the eyes and ears of the public, but they have no special privileges in respect to access to public information. By law, every citizen has a right to know the details of the public’s business, and breaking wrists with the keepers of that information to gain access (best of three breaks wins the battle) is not a pre-requisite. Nowhere is it decreed that one must play 20 Questions with the local police chief to earn a gander at his daily log.

In theory, public servants doing public business should have no qualms about letting the public see and make a record of what has transpired in its behalf. With the exception of what is legally off-limits to the general public – executive-session topics such as personnel matters, collective bargaining details and the like – you’d think that who asks to see what would be no skin off the public servant’s nose. The theory is fine, but when it comes to its grass-roots Maine application often times that dawg won’t hunt.

Part of the Nov. 19 survey included letters to each of the state’s 489 municipal offices seeking a report of the minutes of their most recent council or selectmen’s meeting. A return envelope and $1 for photocopying were enclosed.

Centerville’s Margaret Dorsey returned the dollar with this classic note as to what the aforementioned consortium of media outlets and public advocacy groups might do with its little old survey: “I don’t know who you are, or why you would require a copy of our selectmen’s meeting minutes, but we are a town of 23 citizens, we have only two selectmen and they both live at my house, and the last time we met was at 7 this morning, when my husband and I had coffee together…”

If that priceless down-home rimshot didn’t cause you to snort your morning coffee out through your nose in appreciation, you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.