Olympic Times

They say that patience is a virtue, but if you are making a Freedom of Information (FOI) request in the COVID-19 era, it's a requirement.

The Olympic Times sent an FOI request to Washington state for internal documents and emails related to the coronavirus on June 26. The Washington Human Resources Department replied that it would be Oct. 1 before it could even provide a first installment of the documents requested. 

It cited “the number of other requests we are currently handling,” staff work schedules, statewide staff furloughs and the fact that the public records officer was on maternity leave through August. The state’s Employment Security Office, meanwhile, said it would be Dec. 31 before it could comply.

Iowa FOI Council Executive Director Randy Evans | https://ifoic.org/

“As requested this will be tens of thousands of pages of emails and other records,” the office responded.

Washington is not the only state that is slow to respond to FOI requests on COVID-19. In Iowa, state agencies including the governor’s office are "ignoring questions from reporters, refusing to do interviews and stalling on public records requests — sometimes for months,” the Iowa Gazette in Cedar Rapids reported.

“I’ve heard from newspapers and TV stations that are at the end of their rope,” Randy Evans, executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, told the Gazette. State agencies are “facing legitimate concerns about the coronavirus, but they are seemingly using it as a means of deflecting public records requests.” 

The Hartford Courant submitted an FOI request on July 9 to the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) for any written communications received or sent since March 1 by its commissioner, Katie Dykes, on a proposal by BNE Energy to expand its wind farm.

“Please be advised that we have not located any records responsive to your request,” was the response on July 29, the Courant reported in its Government Watch column.  

Days later, a source provided the Courant with two emails, one sent to Dykes on June 14, the other sent by her on June 15, both with “BNE Wind Turbine” in the subject line.

“The fact that DEEP didn’t come across with these emails raises the question of how important the oft-mouthed idea of government ‘transparency’ is, or isn’t, to Gov. Ned Lamont and his executive branch appointees,” the Courant reported.