Face the State

Eight months after launching FTS, we reflect on lessons learned
Face the State Staff Editorial

Over the last eight months at Face the State, we’ve spent countless hours combing over the public documents we’ve obtained from government officials on the issues our readers care most about. While many of our requests have been complied with to the letter of the law, others have been met with a dismissive arrogance and secrecy that threatens the very core of our open representative system of government. This leaves us gravely concerned.

We launched our site in March, revealing public documents we’d obtained from state Sen. Sue Windels. The Democrat from Arvada should be applauded for her compliance with Colorado’s Open Records Act (CORA), which couldn’t have been easy given what she was forced to divulge.

Among the documents we posted during our first week up and running was an e-mail Windels received from state Rep. Mike Merrifield, chair of the House education committee, where he charged there was “a special place in hell” for school choice supporters. The result: Merrifield was forced to resign his chairmanship for the rest of the session and Windels was politically bruised after refusing to publicly condemn Merrifield’s actions.

We revealed the documents because we felt the public had the right to know the true views of two of Colorado’s highest elected education officials. But we didn’t stop there. We’ve filed more than a dozen additional requests and we’ve been both shocked and saddened by the responses we’ve received.

All the way from non-profits to Gov. Bill Ritter himself, we’ve been met with an ongoing resistance to our efforts to help maintain an open and honest system of government.

As was widely reported on this week, Ritter recently announced an executive order to allow state employees to collectively bargain for higher wages and benefits. At FTS, we obtained internal documents and correspondence more than a month ago indicating that Ritter would take such action. While the report fell on deaf ears in the mainstream media (with the notable exception of the Denver Daily News) our reporting now proves to have been eerily accurate.

Face The State will next week file its opening brief in a court case initiated by Ritter, where he is trying to keep secret a key document he excluded from his response to our open records requests. That document - a memo from labor leaders containing draft collective bargaining legislation - would provide important insight into democrats' plans to unionize state government through the legislative process.

Of course, as time would tell, Ritter ultimately sidestepped the legislature entirely in the aftermath of our reporting on his plans.

Ritter's attorneys tell us his office has "no dog in this fight" over plans for future legislation. If that's the case, why is he and his administration working so hard to prevent release of requested documents?

Ritter isn't the only one resisting openness in government. We've met opposition in the municipal arena as well. In Denver this month, Mayor John Hickenlooper successfully sold to voters a half-billion dollar tax increase. As we pointed out, this campaign was funded by more than $1 million in contributions made by those public institutions and private interests that will now gain mightily in the aftermath of the tax increase's passage.

In looking for required monthly campaign finance reports filed by Hickenlooper's "Better Denver" campaign, we made an important discovery--the city clerk's office is careless about providing such information to the voting public on a timely basis. Nearly a week after Election Day, the reports still aren't posted online (similar reports for statewide campaigns are available almost immediately after they are filed on the Colorado Secretary of State's Web site). We were granted access to the filings only after continuous calls to campaign finance administrators--who eventually provided us hard copies.

As we learned, however, persistence pays off. We learned that "Better Denver" wasn't the citizen coalition Hickenlooper had advertised it as. In fact, as we learned, the campaign's top contributor, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, which gave more than $300,000 in September alone, was using money from ticket sales to play politics.

When we presented the museum with a CORA request to get more details, the museum told us it didn't have to comply. Even though it receives more than $7 million in taxpayer money every year, lawyers for the museum assert the institution is not subject to the state's open-records law. The museum won't even turn over its budget, saying compliance with the minimal reporting requirements of the area's cultural tax district are sufficient.

We're confident state statute and caselaw entitle us to the museum's records, but their stonewalling will continue so long as their stance remains unchallenged in court. It would take roughly $10,000 to do so, say our lawyers.

The public shouldn't have to front thousands of dollars to pursue legal action to obtain records that should be readily available to the public. Government officials--included taxpayer-funded officials at the science museum--know they can stall and lawyer-up to prevent disclosure. We're learning they do not hesitate to do so.

Ultimately, any official receiving an open records act request should greet it with the integrity and seriousness it deserves. With every request we consider making, we ask an essential two-part question: “Will this request help ensure that our system remains open and honest, and can we obtain this information without resorting to a CORA request?”

It is only if we can answer both of these questions affirmatively that we proceed with our request.

We will continue to pursue CORAs. We will also continue to report on the insight they provide. The public deserves answers to the important questions we’ve asked. It's important to send the following message to every official at every level of government: Sunshine truly is the best medicine so let’s all let the sun shine in.