Seattle Adult Entertainment: Public records pest no excuse to limit access
Hard cases make bad law, and this one is a doozy. Cornell is no typical, taxpaying requestor, Lakewood officials say. He has a criminal history of theft and failing to report for sexual deviancy treatment, according to the city’s spokesman, Jeff Brewster, who wrote a letter to the editor to explain how “bizarrely” Cornell acts.
But what of that – or the fact that Cornell shows up to council meetings wearing a priest’s collar? Nothing in his background or his wardrobe precludes Cornell from requesting public records. He has the same right as anyone to ask to see a city employee’s expense voucher or public officials’ e-mail exchanges.
If Lakewood wants to talk about records, then let’s talk about its own. What about that $40,000 a Pierce County judge ordered it the city to pay in 2008 after finding that the city had improperly and negligently handled the request of a Federal Way man seeking records related to the arrest of a Seattle police officer in a prostitution sting? Now there’s a background with some relevance to the subject at hand.
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