Keep records public

We applaud any effort by government officials to ensure that Oregon’s public records and public meetings laws fulfill their noble goal: to make it as easy as possible for people to see what city, county and state agencies are up to.

To that end, Oregon Attorney General John Kroger recently appointed an attorney to serve as the state’s public records “chief.”

Kroger did the right thing.

But we’re not convinced that his decision will truly make it easier for citizens to understand the workings of their government.

The reason for our skepticism is that the public records chief, according to Kroger, will handle major requests for records kept by state agencies.

Which is fine, except most of the records we’re interested in — and that many people want to see — have to do with cities and counties, not the state.

And in our experience with asking for public records to which we, in common with all citizens, are legally entitled, it’s at the local rather than the state level where the laudable intention of the public records and meetings laws collides with bureaucratic inertia, and occasionally outright obstinacy.

Besides appointing a public records chief, Kroger has posted on a state Web site a guide to using the records law.

That, too, is helpful.

But it would be more helpful yet if the state supplied a guide to local government officials that explained, in as coherent a fashion as the state can muster, that with very few exceptions government entities are legally obligated to let anyone who asks see every piece of paper and e-mail that public agencies produce.

Perhaps our biggest frustration as regards the public records law is that some government officials seem to believe that the law protects the records themselves, and that officials break the law if they hand over records to citizens.

Precisely the opposite is the case.

What the law says, in essence, is that all records produced by state and local governments belong to the public, which is all of us. And further, that except for those rare exceptions, these public records must be readily available to the public.

“Readily available” doesn’t, of course, translate to “any time that’s convenient to me.”

It’s not reasonable to expect that every city and county will supply public records 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

But neither is it reasonable — nor, strictly speaking, legal — for public agencies to stonewall residents by complaining that it will take two months to produce a record.

Another common ploy is for agency officials to charge people exorbitant fees to search for records, review records for any exemptions, and, if the person asks for them, to make copies.

We don’t mean to imply that public officials ought to drop whatever they’re doing and cater to every whim of a citizen who asks about records.

Ultimately, though, if the Attorney General wants to uphold the standards set out in the public records law, then he needs to emphasize, to all affected agencies that the burden of the law, so to speak, is not on the public but rather on the government.

In the vast majority of cases, the most appropriate response a government official can make to a citizen who asks about public records happens to be, fortunately, also the simplest response: “Come on over and have a look.”

And if we may be so bold, Attorney General Kroger, how about putting out a manual with that phrase as the title?