A group of Fairfield University journalism students celebrated the 30 ^th anniversary of the state's Freedom of Information Act by going undercover and learning whether Fairfield County cities and towns provided public access to government documents, as mandated by the law.

The students visited three offices in each community - the police station, Board of Education, and city or town clerk's office - and asked for documents, defined under state law, as being available to the public.

Not one of the 23 cities and towns had all three offices fully in compliance with the law, according to the study, released Tuesday. Overall, 51 of the 69 individual offices, or 74 percent, were violating state regulations.

The students either were refused access to the documents, or municipal officials violated state regulations by demanding to know their name, to know the reason for seeing the documents, to see identification, to put the request in writing, or imposed other roadblocks that have been ruled improper under the FOI law.

"The Fairfield County results are consistent with studies across the country that show citizens are being denied their right to public information," said Mitchell Pearlman, executive director of the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission. His group coordinated a similar statewide survey, with Fairfield University participation, in 1999 that also found widespread non-compliance with the law.

"These students performed a real public service. Most of these municipal officials know the law, and they are choosing to not obey it. It's useful to use publicity to let citizens know when their local officials are out of compliance," he said.

Connecticut has one of the most aggressive laws in the country to guarantee that citizens have the right to see documents that are created with public tax dollars.

Citizens do not have to file a written request with the FOI Commission in Hartford; instead, cities and towns must make documents available for public inspection during normal business hours without imposing any other restrictions to access.

The 17 students in the Contemporary Journalism class at Fairfield University visited the municipal offices in March during "Sunshine Week," a national celebration of the public's right to open access for government documents and access to open government meetings.

In Fairfield County, they found the opposite of what the law intended:

• The students visited three offices in each of the 23 communities, or a total of 69 offices. Only 18 of 69 offices were in compliance, or 26 percent. The results were similar to the 1999 survey in which 20 percent of Fairfield County offices were in compliance.
• The remaining offices either refused requests to inspect the public documents or violated state regulations by asking the requesters their name, the reason for seeing them, asked to see an ID, asked to put the request in writing, or improperly blacked out information designed to remain public.
• While there was no city or town where the police, and clerk's office, and school officials all were in compliance, the most cooperative officials were in Newtown, New Canaan and Stratford, where two of the three offices were cooperative and in full compliance with state regulations.
• There was a sharp increase in the percentage of police offices that complied with the law, compared to the 1999 survey. Of the 23 police departments in Fairfield County surveyed, 10 of 23, or 43 percent, were in full compliance with the FOI law, compared to only 4 percent in 1999. In contrast, 26 percent of city and town clerk's offices complied in 2005, and 9 percent of the school board offices.

For a descriptive look at what the students found in each city and town, go to: http://faculty.fairfield.edu/jsimon/

The students followed the rules used in the 1999 survey. They arrived at the office during business hours. They asked police to see arrest records for the current and preceding week. They asked city and town clerks for all marriage license applications (with social security numbers blacked out). They asked school officials for the teacher attendance records. In all three settings, the requested documents are defined as public records. The three types of records were picked because they were used in the 1999 Connecticut study and, Pearlman said, officials clearly know they require public access.

While the documents were supposed to be available at any time for public inspection, some offices asked for time to prepare the documents; students judged an office to be in compliance if it produced the documents within two hours.

"As a young journalism student, I was amazed to see the roadblocks that people face in trying to get public information," said Ashleigh Egan, a Fairfield senior and managing editor of the school's newspaper.

Egan was the field director for the project, and her experience was typical of that faced in the class. She said she arrived at the police station, asked to see the police records, "and the woman behind the glass window asked if I was with the press. I said, 'I would rather not say.' She said, 'Well, then, you're not going to see the records'."

"The Freedom of Information law is for all of us, not just journalists," said Dr. James Simon, a Fairfield journalism professor who coordinated the project. "While journalists regularly use the law to gain access to documents, most FOI requests are filed by businesses or average citizens interested in knowing how their tax dollars are being spent."

"City and town officials sometimes forget that they don't own the documents," said Dr. Simon, who covered government for 10 years with The Associated Press. "While most public officials work hard for their communities, they have to keep in mind that any person has the right to walk into a government office and see the documents that their tax dollars paid to create."

Appendix 1: City and town breakdown,
2005 Fairfield University survey of FOI compliance

The three offices in each city and town were given one of the following three ratings, based on the responses of municipal officials when students asked for access to public records:

Town	2005 city or town clerk	2005 police	2005 schools
Bethel	No	No	No
Bridgeport	No	No	No
Brookfield	No	Yes	No
Danbury	No	Yes	No
Darien	View/restrictions	Yes	No
Easton	No	No	Yes
Fairfield	No	Yes	No
Greenwich	Yes	No	No
Monroe	No	No	No
New Canaan	Yes	No	Yes
New Fairfield	No	View/restrictions	No
Newtown	Yes	Yes	No
Norwalk	No	Yes	No
Redding	View/restrictions	Yes	View/restrictions
Ridgefield	No	No	No
Shelton	No	No	No
Sherman	View/restrictions	Yes	No
Stamford	No	No	No
Stratford	Yes	Yes	No
Trumbull	Yes	No	No
Weston	Yes	No	No
Westport	No	View/restrictions	No
Wilton	No	Yes	No
County totals	6/23 yes, or 26% yes	10/23 yes, or 43% yes	2/23 yes, or 9% yes

Contact: Dr. James Simon, (203) 254-4000 ext. 2792 or Mitchell Pearlman, state FOI, (866) 374-3617

Posted On: 04-14-2005 10:04 AM

Volume: 37 Number: 239