Maine public-record audit finds police least cooperative
By The Associated Press
01.05.03
PORTLAND, Maine — More than a third of police departments turned down requests for routine records in the first statewide test of how local government agencies comply with Maine's Freedom of Access law.
Scores of volunteers participating in a November audit by the Maine Freedom of Information Coalition fanned out across all 16 counties, visiting 74 police departments, 157 municipal offices and 79 school districts. Letters also were mailed to nearly 500 municipalities.
The Nov. 19 audit was the first statewide endeavor to determine whether anyone in Maine can walk into a town office, school district office or police department and review a public record.
Every citizen has a stake in being able to find out what public servants are doing — and failing to do — on their behalf, said Shannon Martin, a journalism professor at the University of Maine.
"This is about accountability, about our ability to find out whether the people we employ to do government work for us are in fact doing it and are doing it to our satisfaction," Martin said.
Surveyors fared worst at police departments, with only two-thirds of the audited departments allowing access to the latest daily incident report, or police log. Some auditors reported being intimidated, and two reported that cruisers followed them after they completed their task.
School officials obtained advance knowledge of what was supposed to be a surprise audit. Even so, only two-thirds of the auditors were allowed to view the superintendents' contracts.
Municipal offices were the most cooperative, but the audit results were skewed because the requested document, the latest expense report for the highest elected official, was rarely kept on file.
The Maine Freedom of Access law, enacted in 1959 to ensure that public business is conducted openly, is clear on the issue of records.
"Except as otherwise provided by statute, every person shall have the right to inspect and copy any public record during the regular business hours of the custodian or location of such record," it says.
The audit was conducted by the Maine Freedom of Information Coalition, made up of news media, public interest, academic, government and private organizations with an interest in protecting access to public information.
The project was modeled after audits conducted in at least 25 other states, and the outcome was in line with audits elsewhere.
"The results are not surprising," said Charles N. Davis, executive director of the Freedom of Information Center at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. "In every one of these states, law enforcement has been the biggest problem, followed very closely by the schools."
The audits have achieved a range of results, including substantive changes in public access law in some states, Davis said. "But the biggest impact is just practical. It reminds people, in a very public way, of their duties," he said.
Unlike a 1978 project by the Maine Press Association that tested compliance by police and sheriffs' departments to requests for public information by the press, the latest audit was intended as a test of access by all citizens.
Auditors, many of them college students, were given specific instructions in an effort to achieve uniform results: Dress neatly, be polite, be persistent. Auditors identified themselves or their employer only if they were required to do so to view a document. They were told to say thank you and leave if they were required to state the reason for viewing the record.
Although the law does not require citizens to identify themselves or provide an explanation when asking to look at a public record, officials often raised such questions to the auditors.
The project drew criticism in some quarters.
Bethel Police Chief Darren Tripp characterized the audit as a "sting operation," and Harry Pringle, attorney for the Maine School Management Association, called it "underhanded."
Only 49 of 74 police departments permitted access to their logs. Of those that did, 47% required auditors to produce identification, 32.7% asked who they worked for, and 40.8% asked why they wanted to see the document.
Some auditors reported that police officers were hostile and left them feeling intimidated. One auditor, an employee of the St. John Valley Times, did not identify himself to police and felt he was watched as he returned to his Madawaska office because the police chief called later that day to verify his employment.
School officials got advance word when a lawyer for the Maine School Management Association learned of the audit and alerted its membership by e-mail. In most of the cases where access to the superintendent's contract was denied, clerks said the superintendent was unavailable to grant permission.
In town offices, only 18% of audited offices had the requested expense reports on file. In nearly half the audits, clerks explained that elected officials cover their expenses out of their annual stipend.
The in-person audits were supplemented with mailed requests to all of Maine's 489 municipal offices for a copy of minutes of the most recent meeting of the Board of Selectmen, Board of Assessors or City Council.
The letters, which contained a stamped self-addressed envelope and $1 to pay for a photocopy, generated 407 responses, 27 of which denied the request.
In its report on the audit, the FOI coalition expressed concerns about a range of barriers to public access. Among them were the requirement that citizens state a reason for their requests and, in some cases, the costs of obtaining photocopies of public documents that run as high as $6 a page.
The Presque Isle police station charges $8 for the first page of its police log, and $1 for every page after that. In nearby Caribou, police charge $6 a page.
Such fees may be legal but the Maine Freedom of Information Coalition deemed $8 for the first page of a document to be "excessive." Portland attorney Jonathan S. Piper, one of the state's leading authorities on First Amendment rights, agreed.
"Unfortunately the Right to Know Law does not specifically say that the cost of reproduction will be at a reasonable rate," he said. "And nobody's going to spend $1,000 on a lawsuit over an $8 copying charge, so they've got you over a barrel."