CITY OF LANGLEY: Judges rule in two public records lawsuits against Langley (SWR)

Jessie Stensland reports in the South Whidbey Record.

Two judges recently made rulings in separate Public Records Act lawsuits against the city of Langley, one of which is seven years old and has gone to the state Court of Appeals and back.

They Said It

Langley Mayor Scott Chaplin said he’s a strong proponent of open government and pointed out that the city hired a records specialist last year and will soon be filling the vacant clerk position, “which will further strengthen the city’s ability to timely and thoroughly respond to all requests from the public.”

“We have made tremendous progress and keeping up with the ever-increasing records reporting protocols is an ongoing process,” he said.

Chaplin also said that the city corrected an oversight in the city’s public records policy and formally adopted the state’s model fee structure last fall.

Chaplin noted that public records lawsuits “take a huge toll in terms of staff time, morale and financial cost.”

“I hope that all persons submitting records requests in the future will come to the city as soon as possible if they feel that they are not getting the information they requested in a timely matter, as most requestors do,” he said.

…in the 2016 case, Island County Superior Court Judge Carolyn Cliff recently ordered the city to pay just $5 for each day the public records — copies of a former mayor’s electronic calendars — were withheld. Since it took 1,063 days to fulfill the request, the penalty amounted to $5,315.

In addition, Cliff ordered the city to pay $30,700 in attorney’s fees, which was about half of what [attorney Bill] Crittenden had requested. Cliff ruled that the city wasn’t liable for attorney’s fees racked up after the city made a settlement offer of approximately the same amount that Cliff ended up awarding [plaintiff Eric] Hood.

In her decision, Cliff notes that the city’s current attorney located a March 1, 2016 email that Hood sent to former attorney Jeff Myers, making it clear that Hood wanted the daily calendars. That email counts as a public records request, but it went unfilled until Feb. 5, 2019.

In the other case, Hood made a public records request in January 2020 and the city responded in a timely manner, letting Hood know how much the records would cost… In his ruling, Judge Christon Skinner ruled that Hood abandoned his request when he didn’t respond to the city’s request for fees.

On the Ballot in November 2023