From the Asheville Citizen-Times (1/31/10): North Carolina needs a public-records law that makes documents created at public expense available to the public within a reasonable time.
When the Citizen-Times sought records on travel by various Buncombe County agencies, Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College took nine days to respond, and then with cursory information.
That probably complies with North Carolina law, according to Dale Harrison of the Sunshine Center at Elon University. “As quickly as possible” is the deadline in state law. “I know they had to go through quite a bit,” A-B Tech spokesperson Martha Ball said.
Still, Harrison added, there is room for interpretation. “It may be that a judge would think such a simple request ought to be filled more quickly.”
There would be no question in Georgia, which requires records to be provided in three business days. The limit is five days in Virginia and seven days in Tennessee.
Other Buncombe agencies had no problem providing the travel information quickly. The Airport Authority furnished detailed records regarding the controversial Hawaii trip the same day the Citizen-Times requested them.
Records also were produced promptly by the towns of Montreat, Black Mountain and Weaverville, the Western North Carolina Regional Air Quality Agency and the Asheville Housing Authority.
Asheville provided detailed records, but it took a week for staff to respond due to a holiday and family illness. Asheville schools responded quickly but the records were jumbled and hard to sort out.
The problem with such words as “as quickly as possible” is that they mean whatever the records custodian thinks they mean. A classic example of how ambiguity can lead to delay came in 1955 when the U.S. Supreme Court, in its second Brown v. Board of Education ruling, said schools should be desegregated “with all deliberate speed.”
The result was that most Southern schools remained pretty much segregated for another 15 years, until the court decided Jim Crow must end “now.” Asheville’s white and African-American high schools were not merged until 1969.
A frequent excuse for foot-dragging is that it is difficult and time-consuming to find the necessary records. That never was a valid excuse, and with today’s advances in electronic data storage, it is even less valid now.
As Tom Bennett, co-founder of Georgia First Amendment Foundation, put it, a nation that can receive a radio signal from Mars can make records accessible.
This is not simply a matter of newspapers snooping for information.
These records are the property of the taxpayers who paid to create them and they should be available to anyone who asks. “The records of North Carolina are ‘the property of the people,’” Harrison said. Among other things, he noted, access to records helps keep government free of corruption, and “lets people know they can inspect the work of their public servants.”
Reasonable people can differ over whether the deadline should be three days, or five or seven. But it should be no more than seven. We think that if Georgia can do it in three, North Carolina should be able to, also.
Asheville Citizen-Times Staff Editorial