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Siegelman drops restrictions on records

Governor reverses restrictions after Zeigler legal challenge

10/23/01

By JEFF AMY
Capital Bureau

MONTGOMERY -- Gov. Don Siegelman's administration has issued a revised public records policy that stops channeling records requests through the governor's legal adviser.

Jim Buckalew, Siegelman's chief of staff, sent the letter Friday to state agency heads and spokesmen. It directs agencies to fulfill requests for specific documents as soon as they can be located. The memo directs officials to acknowledge receipt of "non-specific requests" within 24 hours and to fulfill them within 15 days in most cases.

The memo replaces one issued Sept. 13. That letter became public Sept. 26 after the Mobile Register learned about it, and it brought complaints from open-records experts and news executives.

Mobile lawyer Jim Zeigler, who had filed a lawsuit challenging the Sept. 13 policy, said he will probably give up his fight, although he's still worried that the administration could shy away from releasing non-specific requests.

"What the governor has done is admitted his Sept. 13 policy is wrong and he's changed it," Zeigler said.

Administration lawyers filed a motion in Montgomery County Circuit Court to dismiss Zeigler's suit Friday. Attaching a copy of the memo, the administration argued in part that Zeigler's action was now moot because the old policy no longer exists.

Several observers said the memo undoes an earlier clampdown on ac cess, although most stopped short of outright praise.

"It gets us back to where we should have been," Joe Distelheim, editor of The Huntsville Times, said Monday.

"I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I've still got a lot of doubt after I do that," said Ed Mullins, chairman of the University of Alabama journalism department.

In recent months, the Register and other newspapers have made extensive document requests while reporting on administration contracting practices. Some of those stories have sparked at least one criminal investigation.

The original memo said all written requests from news organizations had to be directed to Ted Hosp, Siegelman's legal adviser. Previously, many Alabama agencies used their own judgment in releasing records and allowing reporters and others to walk in to review public documents on file.

When the memo became public, administration officials said they would revise the policy, in part to erase a distinction between reporters and other citizens that experts labeled illegal. They also said it would not apply to "routine" requests.

Carrie Kurlander, Siegelman's spokeswoman, noted Monday that Alabama law currently has no deadlines for responses.

"We believe it's a very good policy," she said. "It goes beyond what state or federal laws outline."

Alabama's Open Records Act provides that, "Every citizen has a right to inspect and take a copy of any public writing of this state, except as otherwise expressly provided by statute." Some exceptions have been written into the law since it was passed in 1915.

Kurlander said the new policy was released as a memo because it was a clarification of the previous Buckalew memo. She said the administration planned no executive orders or legislation to supplant the letter.

She said people who appear in per son at agencies to request documents would receive treatment similar to those who make written requests.

Kurlander said that when Buckalew wrote about "non-specific requests" in the most recent letter he meant requests for all documents relating to a subject, as opposed to a request for a particular document. Some news executives have pointed out, however, that reporters may ask to see a set of documents, such as a project file, but not be able to name one document in particular.

Buckalew wrote that agencies must reply to "non-specific requests" within 24 hours and must estimate the time needed to gather such documents. He wrote that in "unusual or exceptional circumstances." agencies might take longer than 15 days to fulfill a request.

In those situations, he told officials to "use the timeframes and procedures" set out by the federal Freedom of Information Act.

The federal law was enacted in 1966 by Congress, and gets mixed reviews from document seekers, said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, based in Arlington, Va. Dalglish said some federal agencies are very responsive, while others can take years to produce papers.

"There are some states, I think, that manage their records better than the feds do," she said.

Mullins, also chairman of the Alabama Center for Open Government, which lobbies for public access, said he worried that the 15-day period would become a standard delay. He also said the administration should do more to promote a spirit of openness.

"I still find in this the spirit of someone trying to hide something."

Buckalew's memo directs agencies to discuss requests with their lawyers "if necessary" and said agency heads could call Hosp if they wished. He said review should not produce delays in the 15-day period except in the aforementioned "unusual or exceptional circumstances."

Buckalew had said in September that directing all requests through Hosp would standardize procedure. A 1998 attorney general's opinion said most records shouldn't have to be screened to protect privacy or legal interests.

Dalglish said it was good that Buckalew put away that funnel.

"Getting the lawyers out of there and just getting it back to normal would be a good move," she said.

Distelheim said he was contacted by the administration last week and reviewed a copy of the policy before its release. Distelheim said Tom Scarritt, editor of The Birmingham News, was also consulted. The Register could not reach Scarritt for comment Monday.

Kurlander wouldn't name the outsiders the administration talked to before the policy was released. She said Siegelman, Buckalew, Hosp and press spokesmen were among those within the administration who worked on the guidelines.

Register Editor Mike Marshall said the paper was not consulted beforehand.

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