Perspectives | 7

The following essays represent the analysis and viewpoints of their authors.

Officials Have Interfered With Public Records Officers

By George Erb

In at least two cases around the state, public agency officials have obstructed legitimate records requests by ordering records officers to deny disclosure or hide troubling and embarrassing information.

Public agency officials in Washington state have interfered at times with public records officers who were responding to records requests, although the frequency of these incidents is unknown.

Two cases have come to light in recent years. An attorney for former Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan in 2020 meddled with the work of two records officers. The following year, former Monroe School District Superintendent Justin Blasko delayed the release of one public records request and misled the district’s records manager about the presence of job-related texts on his personal cell phone.

How often agency officials interfere with public records officers is difficult to determine. Few such incidents become part of the public record. Officers with the Washington Association of Public Records Officers (WAPRO) in emails said the nonprofit does not monitor agency interference and declined further comment, saying their organization focuses only on its educational mission. (1)

The events in Seattle arose from the Black Lives Matter protests in the spring of 2020, when protesters clashed repeatedly with police and occupied six blocks of the Capitol Hill neighborhood. In a controversial move, the city abandoned its nearby police precinct. To understand the city’s actions, the public and the media filed numerous public records requests, including 48 that sought communications from the mayor’s office. (2)

At the time, Kimberly Ferreiro and Stacy Irwin were senior public disclosure advisers with the city of Seattle Mayor’s Office. Their immediate supervisor was Michelle Chen, Durkan’s legal counsel.

While working on the records requests, Ferreiro and Irwin discovered that about 10 months of the mayor’s text messages were missing – messages that were relevant to the requests.

In a subsequent lawsuit for wrongful discharge, Ferreiro and Irwin contended that Chen directed them to keep requesters in the dark about Durkan’s missing texts and to instead provide “recreated” texts from messages sent or received by others. (3)

The two records officers also alleged that Chen instructed them to interpret the records requests in such a way that more than half of the requests would exclude the mayor’s texts. One requester, The Seattle Times, was singled out. Ferreiro and Irwin said Chen told them to withhold the documents sought by the Times’ request “because she did not like the content of the responsive records.” (4)

Both records officers objected repeatedly because they believed Chen’s directions violated Washington state’s Public Records Act. They refused to follow Chen’s instructions, and in March 2021 Irwin filed a whistleblower complaint with the city’s Ethics and Elections Commission. (5)

The commission’s investigation concluded that Chen’s decision to narrowly interpret most of the records requests to exclude the missing text messages violated the Public Records Act. The investigation report also said Chen’s decision to not tell requesters about the missing and recreated texts violated best practices, but not necessarily the letter of the law. (6)

Both records officers said the workplace consequences for their actions were severe. According to their lawsuit, Ferreiro and Irwin “were routinely subjected to scorn, ridicule, abuse, and hostility from Ms. Chen and managers at the City of Seattle.” (7) Irwin went on medical leave in February 2021, and Ferreiro did so a month later. Both soon resigned from the city.

In August of that year, Chen left her job at City Hall. Her attorney later told The Seattle Times that the investigation was unfair, and that Chen had followed the advice of the office of the Seattle City Attorney. (8)

The city in May 2023 settled Ferreiro and Irwin’s wrongful discharge lawsuit by agreeing to pay $2.3 million, a figure that included all expenses and attorneys fees. (9)

Thirty-three miles north of Seattle, in Monroe, Wash., Justin Blasko by December 2021 was coming to the end of a tumultuous tenure as superintendent of the public school district.

Teachers, parents and students complained publicly that the Monroe School District was not addressing long-standing issues of racism and discrimination. More than 1,000 people signed a petition demanding change at the top. On Dec. 13, Monroe students walked out in protest.

Days later, the school board placed Blasko on administrative leave (10), and the district hired an outside firm to investigate misconduct allegations against the superintendent.

Among the investigation’s numerous findings (11) were instances of Blasko interfering with public records requests.

In May 2021, a requester asked the district to disclose its staff climate and culture surveys. Blasko intervened and instructed the public records officer to delay releasing the survey until later that summer. One witness told the investigator that Blasko said he wanted the survey results withheld until his contract extension was negotiated in June. (12)

The district released the survey results in August, three months after the records were requested.

School officials in December 2021 received another records request, this time for Blasko’s cell phone records, including text messages on his personal device. Blasko told the public records officer that he did not do government business on his personal cell phone.

His colleagues said otherwise. Two district staff members said they had exchanged job-related text messages with Blasko from his personal device. They even provided screenshots of texts from Blasko’s personal phone. The superintendent denied using his personal cell phone for district business, but the investigator found the witnesses more credible. (13)

Blasko resigned in July 2022 and walked away with a severance payment of $396,374.55. (14)

Although the frequency of agency interference with public records officers is unknown, the cases that have come to light are troubling and almost certainly not solitary incidents. Officials in the Seattle Mayor’s Office and the Monroe School District meddled with public records requests to advance their own self interests. They delayed disclosure of or hid information they considered inconvenient, embarrassing or even damaging.

This is contrary to a central principle of the Public Records Act, which is that the public needs to know what its officials are doing. Only then can voters weigh their governments’ performance, hold their officials accountable and make informed decisions.

WashCOG Secretary George Erb is a retired news reporter, editor and university journalism instructor. He joined the coalition board in 2002.

  1. Email correspondence Aug. 7-18, 2023, with Megan Schoenfelder, executive director, and Tracy Becht, officer, for the Washington Association of Public Records Officers.
  2. Investigative report, case No. 21-WBI-0304-1, May 6, 2021, the city of Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission.
  3. Irwin and Ferreiro v. city of Seattle, King County Superior Court, Case No. 21-2-11739-9 SEA, Sept. 3, 2021.
  4. Ibid.
  5. Investigative report, case No. 21-WBI-0304-1.
  6. Ibid.
  7. Irwin and Ferreiro v. city of Seattle.
  8. “Employees who blew whistle on Seattle mayor’s missing texts file lawsuit against the city,” The Seattle Times, Sept. 3, 2021.
  9. Settlement agreement and release, Irwin and Ferreiro v. city of Seattle, May 10, 2023.
  10. “Monroe School District superintendent placed on administrative leave amid calls for his resignation,” KING 5, Dec. 20, 2021.
  11. “’(Expletive) idiot’: Scathing report paints Monroe schools supe as bully,” The Herald, May 28, 2022.
  12. Summary Report of Investigation for the Monroe School District, Seabold Group, May 9, 2022.
  13. Ibid.
  14. “Blasko to resign, get nearly $396K in severance with Monroe schools,” The Herald,” July 15, 2022.