Editor,

Not withstanding the Whidbey News-Times’ cranky Oct. 10 editorial, “Freedom Foundation settlement unnecessary on all sides of the issue,” there was nothing remotely vindictive in the Freedom Foundation’s determination to have a lawfully submitted information request honored by Island County.

For the record, the $15,000 settlement we received when the county neglected to do so was by no means a windfall. It was, in fact, nothing more or less than compensation for the time our lawyers spent forcing Island County officials to live up to their responsibilities under the Public Records Act.

Had they done their job in the first place, there would have been no been wrongdoing and no settlement.

The author of the editorial concedes the county was at fault in the episode, even going so far as to throw in a metaphorical eye roll over County Commissioner Rick Hannold’s suggestion that our request might have gotten lost in the fax machine.

But the editorial then criticizes the Freedom Foundation for not following up and giving the county another opportunity to rectify the “oversight” before insisting on compensation.

Exactly how many chances does the county require before it agrees to follow the law?

Hannold claims the county receives hundreds of information requests a year, and that’s probably not an exaggeration. Are they all ignored? If not, why was ours the exception?

The Freedom Foundation, I’d be willing to wager, has an even smaller staff than Island County and, as part of our goal of promoting “limited, accountable government” in Washington state, we often rely on information requests to ferret out waste, fraud and abuse.

If Island County lacks the resources to process these requests even once, imagine how thin we’d be stretched if we had to process them multiple times just to accommodate counties that didn’t feel like following the law the first time.

Was the intent of our information request to identify illegal activity in Island County? Not specifically, but that doesn’t lessen anyone’s responsibility under the Public Records Act.

In addition to my duties with the Freedom Foundation, I sit on the board of directors of the Washington Coalition for Open Government, a decidedly bipartisan organization that probes just these kinds of abuses, and I can assure you the county cannot give more or less attention to a particular information request based on its own opinion of the motives of the requester.

The Freedom Foundation’s request was neither specious nor complicated. It was, in every sense of the word, routine and should have been honored by Island County just as it was by the other counties that received it.

If the taxpayers of Island County now find themselves out $15,000, it’s the fault of their own elected officials and paid staff, not the Freedom Foundation. We’re the victim of the county’s arrogance and inefficiency, not the cause of it.

If you think that’s mean, so be it. But the only thing worse than a county government flouting the law is a local newspaper rationalizing it.

Jeff Rhodes

Freedom Foundation