GREAT FALLS TRIBUNE
OPINION
July 20, 2008

Judge was right to open city's draft documents

In Montana, if local government is invited to join the party, plan to be a gracious host.

There will be many more guests and you'll need to entertain them.

That's the strong message sent by State District Judge E. Wayne Phillips of Lewistown in his ruling that the city of Great Falls cannot withhold documents from the public simply because those documents are in draft form.

We loudly applaud his decision.

Phillips' ruling is the result of a complaint filed by the Montana Environmental Information Center after its program director and a member from Great Falls had requests turned down to see agreements between the city of Great Falls and Southern Montana Electric Generation & Transmission Cooperative.

SME includes Great Falls and five electric cooperatives. The co-op is proposing to build a coal-fired power plant east of Great Falls. So far the city of Great Falls has spent about $2 million on development expenses for the plant.

City Attorney David Gliko denied requests made for drafts of contracts and financial agreements between the city and SME. Drafts are not public, he reasoned.

Not so, says Phillips.

He rejected Gliko's argument that the federal Freedom of Information Act exempts drafts from public disclosure. Montana's law doesn't include that exemption.

What's more, Gliko's argument that because state law doesn't require drafts to be treated as public records for the purposes of retention or disposal, that those drafts don't need to be disclosed to the public, misconstrues the statute, Phillips said. He goes on to call the city's stance disingenuous.

Entities using public money in Montana are required to open up their records and books when asked, by anyone.

The city of Great Falls regularly accommodates requests from Tribune staff members for everything from police records to contract documents.

However, Montana's open-records laws don't — and shouldn't — apply exclusively to media requests. It gives anyone the right to ask for any public document for any reason.

Throwing up obstacles when those requests are made does nothing more than create suspicion about government dealings, founded or not.

Charles Christensen, the MEIC member from Great Falls who raised concerns after being denied access to records, and Anne Hedges, program director for MEIC, deserve applause too for their efforts, which benefit all Montanans by ensuring that our long tradition of open government continues.

Not surprisingly, the Montana Newspaper Association joined MEIC's lawsuit. In the interest of full disclosure, we note that Jim Strauss, the publisher of the Great Falls Tribune and member of the newspaper's editorial board, is an MNA board member and supported joining the lawsuit.