Tag: G.S. 132.1

The Endless Battle

On hundreds of occasions when I was a newspaperman I went round and round with government officials over access to public records.

Some of them must never have read North Carolina’s public records law, G.S. 132-1, or, if they had, they didn’t understand it.  Basically, the law says that all state and local government records are public — written documents, photographs, tape recordings, everything — unless there’s  another law that says they aren’t, like the laws protecting tax returns, medical records, SBI investigations, things like that, from public disclosure.

They’d say stuff like, “I’ve worked here 25 years and we’ve never released that record,” as if that mattered.

Some wanted to know why I wanted the record.  State law didn’t require me –and doesn’t require you– to tell them and, when you get right down to it, it’s none of their business.

They sometimes tried to overcharge the newspaper I worked for, The News & Observer.

A state Department of Transportation lawyer sent me a letter saying a database we wanted would cost the newspaper twenty-something thousand dollars.

“While this may seem exorbitant…” he said in the letter, proving that lawyers do so have sense of humor.

My favorite encounter over public records involved my request for a copy of an accident report from the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles headquarters in Raleigh.  The report, the DVM clerk conceded, was public. But the accident report index, without which you couldn’t find an individual report, was not public, he said.

Huh?  Says who?

The clerk said that’s what an assistant attorney general who advised DMV on such matters had told him. At my request he asked that attorney to join us.

Sure enough, that was his position: the accident report was public but the index wasn’t. That was so nutty, in my opinion, there was no point in discussing it.  Might as well cut to the chase.

I said, “Bill, The N&O is going to rely on G.S. 132-1, which says that index is public. What law are you going to rely on that says it isn’t?”

He hemmed and hawed but he didn’t cite a statute.

So I asked him again.  He beat around the bush some more.  I said, “Bill, you’re wasting our time. What law are you going to rely on?”

“There isn’t a law,” he said,“but there ought to be.”

I said, “Bill, are you listening to yourself?”

Postscript: DMV let me see the index and I found, and copied, the accident report I wanted.

NOTE:

§ 132-1. “Public records” defined.

(a) “Public record” or “public records” shall mean all documents, papers, letters, maps, books, photographs, films, sound recordings, magnetic or other tapes, electronic data-processing records, artifacts, or other documentary material, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received pursuant to law or ordinance in connection with the transaction of public business by any agency of North Carolina government or its subdivisions. Agency of North Carolina government or its subdivisions shall mean and include every public office, public officer or official (State or local, elected or appointed), institution, board, commission, bureau, council, department, authority or other unit of government of the State or of any county, unit, special district or other political subdivision of government.

(b) The public records and public information compiled by the agencies of North Carolina government or its subdivisions are the property of the people. Therefore, it is the policy of this State that the people may obtain copies of their public records and public information free or at minimal cost unless otherwise specifically provided by law. As used herein, “minimal cost” shall mean the actual cost of reproducing the public record or public information. (1935, c. 265, s. 1; 1975, c. 787, s. 1; 1995, c. 388, s. 1.)

Coming Monday: The Spoon

The Good Fairy – Part 1 of 2

When I stopped by a tiny windowless room in the basement of City Hall in Charlotte — a place reporters who worked at The Charlotte News called the “foreign office” — the door was closed.

And locked.

The three News reporters who covered city government, county governments, and courts and cops, worked there.  It had been my office for three years before I was moved to the downtown office and I don’t remember us ever closing the door during the day. We certainly didn’t lock it.

I knocked.

I heard someone say, “Just a minute.” When the reporter who had taken my place covering the city finally opened the door I could see he was relieved to see it was just me.

He closed and locked the door again and began unbuttoning his shirt — it was puffed out, like he had gained 25 or 30 pounds — and began pulling out what looked like letters, torn in half, and piling them on his desk.

He was one happy guy because he had accidently discovered a cache of discarded government documents.

He had gone to the bathroom in the men’s room on the third floor of City Hall, washed his hands, dried them with a paper towel, and tried to stuff it in the waste paper basket, but there was no room. It was full, but not full of paper towels. Sticking out the top was what looked to him like letters, reports.

Charlotte Mayor Stan Brookshire was going out of office soon and someone was cleaning out his files. Papers that had been discarded in his waste basket had been emptied into the much larger trash can in the Men’s Room.

The documents were public records* under North Carolina law. Still, they were the kind of records that were difficult, if not impossible, to obtain. You can’t ask to inspect, or copy, a  letter or report you don’t know exists.

Working together we emptied the trash can in the Men’s Room, took everything to my colleague’s apartment, and  taped the letters and other documents back together.

We were rewarded with leads on two or three OK stories. But the best was yet to come.

My colleague called me the next week and told me the good news: the trash can in the third floor Men’s Room was the mother lode.  A janitor emptied the waste baskets from the offices of the mayor, the city manager, and their secretaries into that big trash can every day.

What a source!  We named it the “Good Fairy.”

Continued tomorrow.

* North Carolina General Statute 132.1:

“‘Public record’ or ‘public records’ shall mean all documents, papers, letters, maps, books, photographs, films, sound recordings, magnetic or other tapes, electronic data-processing records, artifacts, or other documentary material, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received pursuant to law or ordinance in connection with the transaction of public business by any agency of North Carolina government or its subdivisions.

“The public records and public information compiled by the agencies of North Carolina government or its subdivisions are property of the people.”

There are a number of exceptions to G.S. 132.1, for example: medical records; tax returns; SBI investigative reports; the state auditor’s audit work papers; and certain personnel records of public employees.