The city of Puyallup’s sudden new interest in creating government transparency seems like good news, but only if it comes with a major cultural shift at city hall.
The city plans to train city employees on how to handle public requests to create a better process for logging those requests. There needs to be a general change in attitude, too.
In the past the city has not only been slow in providing documents, but also uncooperative.
In a Herald survey of public access two years ago, we requested the names and salaries of Puyallup’s top 10 highest paid employees. The city responded with a letter stating they didn’t have to provide the information because it was kept in separate documents and the city wasn’t required to create a new document. Their response was technically accurate but skirted the spirit of the law. Based on conversations with others in the community, The Herald’s experience wasn’t unusual.
The public shouldn’t have to beg, borrow and plead for public records that belong to them. Perhaps this new emphasis will reexamine the city’s perspective on public access. We hope so because the city won’t make any progress without first changing its frame of mind.
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