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Washington Coalition for Open Government WashCOG is an independent, nonpartisan and nonprofit advocate of open government and informed citizens. We welcome public comments on our page.

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The Seattle Times editorial board on Monday said, essentially, enough is enough with the King County Regional Homelessne...
10/13/2026

The Seattle Times editorial board on Monday said, essentially, enough is enough with the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

Credible allegations that KCRHA’s leadership meddled with public records requests means it’s time for other agencies to intervene, the editorial board said.

Most of the homelessness agency’s funding comes from King County and the city of Seattle.

Earlier this month The Times reported on the resignation of the agency’s public records officer. Brianne Bagby said she quit after KCRHA’s leaders limited her access to executive records – in particular, CEO Kelly Kinnison’s emails.

Bagby’s exit was foreshadowed by the work of journalist Erica C. Barnett. In July she reported how Kinnison tried to shield many of her emails from disclosure.

The agency is already in civic detention for leadership turnover, failed internal controls, unaccounted funds and disappointing results.

“If KCRHA is worth salvaging,” the editorial said, “making sure it operates within the law when it comes to public records should be part of the plan to stabilize and reset it.”

Below, Kelly Kinnison, CEO of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. KCRHA photo.

Open government advocate Jamie Nixon has filed a lawsuit accusing the Office of the Washington State Auditor of violatin...
10/12/2026

Open government advocate Jamie Nixon has filed a lawsuit accusing the Office of the Washington State Auditor of violating the Public Records Act, court documents show.

Nixon’s legal complaint, filed in Thurston County Superior Court, contends the agency failed to conduct an adequate search and closed his records request without releasing relevant documents.

In recent months Nixon has also filed PRA lawsuits against the Puget Sound Partnership, South Puget Sound Community College and the Washington State Patrol, twice.

Nixon’s lawsuit against the Auditor’s Office originated with his two requests for records related to an auditor’s employee who allegedly accused Washington Technology Solutions, another state agency, of a “cover up,” according to the complaint.

In both cases the Auditor’s Office said it could not find any relevant records and closed Nixon’s requests.

But Nixon argues that other records, disclosed separately, were relevant to his requests and suggest the existence of additional records. The agency “did not adequately pursue these leads,” his lawsuit contends.

Nixon asked the court to find the state Auditor’s Office in violation of the PRA. He also asked the court to order the agency to conduct an adequate search and disclose all relevant records.

The lawsuit was filed in Thurston County Superior Court under case No. 26-2-06184-34.

How do you make a public records request in Washington state?We show you how. Follow this link to our website: https://w...
10/11/2026

How do you make a public records request in Washington state?

We show you how.

Follow this link to our website: https://www.washcog.org/making-a-records-request

Below, a filing cabinet at the Entiat National Fish Hatchery in Entiat, Washington. Photo by Julia Pinnix of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Snohomish County has agreed to pay $35,000 to settle its litigation with records requester Jose Rodriguez over images cr...
10/10/2026

Snohomish County has agreed to pay $35,000 to settle its litigation with records requester Jose Rodriguez over images created by Flock Safety cameras.

In an agreement dated Sept. 24, the county promised to make its payment within 30 days in exchange for Rodriguez dropping his legal claims and withdrawing his records requests. The county denied any wrongdoing.

Rodriguez made his records request for the county’s Flock images in October 2025, months before the state Legislature exempted the cameras’ data from the Public Records Act.

He ended up filing 53 records requests for Flock images with agencies statewide to call attention to the extent of the surveillance technology, the Cascadia Daily News reported.

Rodriguez was represented by attorney Timothy Hall with the Yakima firm of Hall and Gilliland Attorneys at Law.

Below, a Flock Safety camera. Photo by MiracleMiles via Wikimedia Commons, license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

A public records request for documentation of an eyebrow-raising decision in Pacific County resulted in more raised eyeb...
10/10/2026

A public records request for documentation of an eyebrow-raising decision in Pacific County resulted in more raised eyebrows.

The county prosecutor’s office this summer reversed an earlier decision that landed Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Kyle Pettit on the so-called “Brady list,” according to various news reports.

Prosecutors routinely keep Brady lists of law-enforcement officers with documented credibility issues. That includes provable instances of dishonesty, misconduct or criminal behavior.

“Brady” refers to a decades-old U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Brady v. Maryland. It said prosecutors must disclose evidence favorable to defendants, including information about the credibility of police officers.

At the time, Pacific County Prosecuting Attorney Michael Rothman said a “review of all of the materials available warranted removal.”

The decision did not go unnoticed.

Jeff Clemens of the Chinook Observer submitted a public records request for documents related to removing the officer’s name.

The disclosed records answered a few questions – and raised others.

In September, the Observer reported that county officials were unable to provide the original digital file of a deputy prosecutor’s report that was instrumental in reversing Pettit’s status.

Without the original document and its metadata, no one can say who created the file and when, or when it was changed and who changed it.

Clemens also noted that the prosecutor’s “office resolved every factual ambiguity in Pettit’s favor based exclusively on the records he retrieved and provided.”

Public records requests always begin with questions. Incomplete disclosures leave some questions unanswered.

Below, the Pacific County Courthouse in South Bend, Washington. Photo by Steven Pavlov, via Wikimedia Commons under the following license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

The drama and dysfunction of Washington state’s 2021 redistricting is no longer in the rear-view mirror. Instead, it’s a...
10/08/2026

The drama and dysfunction of Washington state’s 2021 redistricting is no longer in the rear-view mirror. Instead, it’s again in the headlights.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to review a challenge to a legislative and congressional map that was redrawn to favor Latino voters in Washington state.

The justices immediately sent the case back to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to decide whether the latest boundaries align with new case law that the high court handed down in April.

It’s a new twist in a state redistricting process that proved fraught from the beginning.

Peak dysfunction likely occurred in November 2021, when the state’s redistricting commissioners convened their final open public meeting.

Minutes later commissioners disappeared into a series of executive sessions, where they worked for the public in secret.

They reappeared minutes before the midnight deadline and unanimously “adopted” their final legislative and congressional maps without discussion.

Observers never saw the “final” maps because there were none. The state Supreme Court finished the job that commissioners failed to do.

WashCOG sued the state and its Redistricting Commission for violating the Open Public Meetings Act. It was an easy case to make because the violations were so egregious.

The state and commission quickly settled. Besides admitting to OPMA violations, they accepted reforms that WashCOG insisted upon, such as ending secret deliberations and making maps public before voting on them.

All of us need to keep those commitments in mind when our state convenes its next redistricting commission – in January 2031.

Below, the original legislative district map adopted in 2022. It was later revised – and may be revised yet again.

WashCOG Key Award honoree Brittany Voie was a panelist Saturday at the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association confe...
10/08/2026

WashCOG Key Award honoree Brittany Voie was a panelist Saturday at the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association conference in Everett.

The panel’s topics included public records, of course.

Brittany devoted a column to the panel discussion in the Lewis County News. You can access the column through her Facebook post at: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DeRK46hTr/

Heads up, requesters: The column introduced us to the value of search affidavits. They can help requesters spot omissions and write more precise records requests.

Finally, this month Brittany was voted Lewis County’s Best Muckraker. Congratulations!

Below, Brittany Voie, left, in May accepted a WashCOG Key Award from coalition Secretary George Erb. WashCOG photo.

In his latest podcast, open government advocate Jamie Nixon takes on thorny disclosure issues surrounding commentator Br...
10/07/2026

In his latest podcast, open government advocate Jamie Nixon takes on thorny disclosure issues surrounding commentator Brandi Kruse’s exchanges with legislators and staff in Olympia.

Kruse, along with co-plaintiffs Ari Hoffman and Jonathan Choe, sued the state Legislature after they were denied press credentials. The case is now being heard in U.S. District Court in Tacoma.

The litigation unleashed disclosure issues that are now colliding with one another, Nixon argues.

Can the government use the court process of discovery to force Kruse to disclose her exchanges with Statehouse sources? A Washington state statute largely shields reporters from having to disclose their sources to public officials.

Meanwhile …

Nixon last year filed a public records request seeking records related to the press-credential dispute. Communications between Kruse, members of the House and their staffs are within the scope of that request.

Can the same information at issue in the federal court case be subject to disclosure under the state Public Records Act?

Nixon walks listeners through this legal thicket in episode 25 of The Public Records Officer Podcast. Here’s the link: https://www.thepublicrecordsofficer.com/ep-25-are-kruses-texts-with-lawmakers-public-records/

Thirty-one days is the median turnaround time for the state Department of Corrections to complete public records request...
10/06/2026

Thirty-one days is the median turnaround time for the state Department of Corrections to complete public records requests over an eight-year period, 2018-2025.

The department was the slowest of the 16 state agencies that submitted reports to a legislative committee for all eight years.

The state Military Department and the Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals occupied the speedy side of the scale. Their median days to “final disposition” of public records requests was a single day.

Jim MacRae, you asked for more data – and here it is.

The rankings came from our analysis of data compiled annually by the state Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee.

Another 13 state agencies submitted reports for six or seven of the eight years. We ranked them separately because the omitted years are potentially significant.

The state Attorney General’s Office was the slowest agency on the secondary list, with a median turnaround time of 38 days.

Agencies are more often slowed by requests that require a lot of review, such as requests for student records, inmate files and investigation records.

State and local agencies that get a lot of requests aren’t systematically slower. In fact, some high-volume agencies – think emergency dispatch centers – routinely post some of the fastest turnaround times.

See the comments for a spreadsheet on the median turnaround times for 29 state agencies.

The state committee tasked with whittling away at more than 700 exemptions to Washington state’s Public Records Act is e...
10/06/2026

The state committee tasked with whittling away at more than 700 exemptions to Washington state’s Public Records Act is expected to hold its final scheduled meeting of the year today in Olympia.

The Washington state Sunshine Committee will convene at 9 a.m. in a session that is open to the public in person and online. TVW routinely covers the panel’s meetings.

Today’s session is likely the last before the committee submits its annual report to the state Legislature. The report includes the panel’s recommendations on exemptions that should be changed, repealed or retained.

Legislators last adopted the committee’s recommendations in 2019. Earlier this year the state House passed a bill adopting the committee’s 2025 recommendations, but the legislation died in the Senate.

Today’s meeting agenda, which includes instructions for how to observe the session, is online at https://agportal-s3bucket.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Sunshine%20Committee/20261006-Oct%206%20Meeting%20Materials/Agenda%20October%206%2C%202026%20Meeting.pdf?VersionId=htFnSBvtv7vnPONwmrvSOatR689kmjd8

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