Letter to Governor Baldacci in Support of the Freedom of Access Act

Governor John Baldacci
State of Maine
1 State House Station
Augusta, Maine 04333-0001

Dear Governor Baldacci,

First, we would like to thank you for endorsing recently enacted legislation supporting the Freedom of Access Act, which mandates that elected and government employees complete training on the requirements of Maine’s Freedom of Access laws relating to public records and proceedings. We especially appreciate that this new law requires that those public officials serving in office on July 1, 2008 must complete the training by November 1, 2008, that those public officials are required to make a written or electronic record attesting that the training has been completed, that those public officials must maintain a record of the training, available to the public, with the public entity of which they are affiliated, and that those public officials could face penalties and other consequences for failure to comply with the law.

We are writing to inform you of what seems like a very tactical maneuver by public officials to side step the newly enacted law and create barriers between the municipal government and the public. Our newly hired “Town Manager” has decided that instead of giving the public the information that they request, he is requiring that any information the public requests go through the Town Attorney first to be “scrubbed” and then after compiling the information and making copies charging our townspeople $1.00 per page. This includes documents ranging from copies of meeting minutes, budgets, town employee salaries, and lawyer fees. The copy of the document with the town employee salaries alone cost one of our citizens $22.00 to obtain. Before this individual was hired, we had a more open, transparent form of government where we were treated with dignity and respect and given any public documents that we requested free of charge.

The concerns that we have are as follows. One, if the Town Manager requests that all documents including the trivial documents go through the Town Attorney, this costs the taxpayers an unnecessary expense given the Town Attorney charges roughly $150.00 per hour. If the Town Manager was more familiar with the Freedom of Access Act then he wouldn’t have to go through the Town Attorney hence saving the taxpayer money. Every time he calls the Town Attorney and/or requests the Town Attorney “scrub” the documents, we get charged for this.

Secondly, after requesting a document that may be up to 20 pages and the Town Manager charges the requestor $1.00 per page, this adds up quickly. It makes it not only difficult for our townspeople who are living on fixed incomes but in this time of increased expenses related to food, energy, transportation, and the like, it makes it difficult for our middle income citizens to afford these new expenses. We don’t mind paying 10 cents per page or even upwards of 25 cents per page but $1.00 per page is not only extreme, it creates a barrier between the municipal government and the citizens who cannot afford to pay this outrageous amount of money for a public document. Also, in those cases where the citizen has access to a computer, public officials could bypass making paper copies and scan them into a computer as a PDF and e-mail them for free or even post the information on the Town website.

Finally, when a citizen requests information from this Town Manager, they are made to feel as if they are a “trouble maker” of some sort and treated like the enemy. This not only creates a feeling of distrust but it puts people on the defensive because it is intimidating to have to be confronted in this manner by a public official who works for us. Some of us may be able to handle this kind of behavior but others are going to shy away from making such requests because it causes anxiety and fear.

In closing, we really do appreciate that it appears that the State of Maine supports and endorses the sharing of public documents with the citizens of Maine. We just thought you should know that those who appear to want to hide information from the public have found new, more expensive ways to get around these newly enacted laws. We are very concerned with our current situation given the fact that we never experienced this kind of behavior with our former Town Manager who worked for the Town of Lisbon for almost twenty years. Please understand that we are willing to work with public officials regarding the miniscule expense it may create to make a copy of a public document. But, we feel that it is unnecessary that all requests must go through an attorney that charges us $150.00 per hour and to receive charges of $1.00 per page when the same goal could be accomplished for free in most cases with solid education regarding the laws and the use of computer technology. If you don’t have anything to hide then we don’t understand why requesting a public document is such a big deal.

Thank you for your time Governor Baldacci.

Sincerely,

Lisbon Taxpayers and Citizens

cc: Senator Olympia Snowe, Senator Susan Collins, Representative Tom Allen, Representative Michael Michaud