Information wants to be free, but we here at the Press are not always successful in our efforts to release public information from the shackles of bureaucracy.

In honor of Sunshine Week this week, a national project by the American Society of News Editors and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, The Middletown Press is taking a look at some of the Freedom of Information requests made in the past year and following up on their progress.

Sunshine Week is meant to get people talking about government transparency and inform the public about their right to obtain information.

Documents prepared, produced, used, received or kept by a public agency are available to the public, including property and tax records, state-wide test scores, local and state-wide audits and police reports. Sometimes agencies can hide behind things like “it concerns a minor” or “it’s a pending investigation” to withhold information, but even then it is worth at least asking to see it first.

While some departments easily hand things over, others ask for something in writing before they will let you look at their documents. Then there are others who simply deny you the right to see public documents, and you have to file a complaint with the state’s Freedom of Information Commission.

At the Press, we have asked for, under the Freedom of Information Act, lists of tax delinquents in all Middlesex County Towns, contracts involving paining the town hall in Cromwell, the former acting police chief’s calendar for specific days, copies of settlement deals involving town workers, mileage records for city employees and details on the arrest of a former Middletown police officer.

Sometimes we get the records right away, other times the process takes longer.
While the state law says the agency must provide this information in a “reasonable amount of time” and at a “reasonable cost” (copying fees, etc.), it is sometimes difficult to assess what is “reasonable.” Usually, this is based on the amount of information you are asking for.

One of the main problems we have run into is that our staff hasn’t always kept copies of their requests, so they have been difficult to follow up on. While the requests themselves become public documents once they are filed, we found out that they are not always on file with the correct department.

In fact, a request to see copies of any FOI requests to the City of Middletown made by Middletown Press staff during 2011 only produced three results from the town clerk, while we know of at least two more that were filed that nobody seems to have a record of.

We are still waiting for information from the Middletown Police Department in regards to animal control records we had requested, about mileage records for 2011 and about a detailed arrest report we had requested. We had to back down on a request for copies of emails for a city employee for a particular day that we requested last spring, because we the city claims to have no record of our request and we don’t have a copy of what we were actually requesting.

To resolve this issue in the future and get better at following up on our requests and holding departments accountable for fulfilling them, our entire Connecticut cluster of newspapers is creating a spreadsheet listing all the requests we make and whether they have been fulfilled. This document will be available to the public on a new Open Records blog we have created, available here.

We have also created an informal Freedom of Information Committee for Connecticut that will work with all reporters and hold classes for the public to let everyone know of their rights to see and obtain public documents. Read more about that here.

What do you think we should ask to see copies of? We welcome ideas. Email editor@middletownpress.com.