I have an outstanding public records request. It is not "outstanding" in the manner that I wrote a great request, but "outstanding" in that I haven't received any public records yet from the request. I have been hired by government agencies as a consultant to help the agency find and produce response records on occasion. Mostly, I was hired because the agency did such a bad job in producing records that a court ordered the agencies to hire a third party.

In those instances, I won't talk about what the agencies specifically did wrong, but it was enough to justify a court order to do it right. The interesting thing about working on a public records engagement versus a civil litigation is that the rules are somewhat different, especially the part about a citizen's right to request public records without a need to show damage. Citizens who are curious as to what their governments are doing can simply make a request for specific records. That is pretty cool. Being in Washington (State), the MRSC website is packed with everything anyone ever needs to know about public records requests and laws.

So, back to my public records request...

Well, this request isn't part of an engagement where I have been hired as a consultant, but the subject of the request is surely important to me and should end up being important to others too. I most likely will detail the trials and tribulations of this request as soon as I am provided the start of a rolling production of records. Then I will be able to blog about records requests from the perspective of the requestor as compared to the view of the insider. One personal benefit is that I plan on learning what I can as the requestor and compare the results with what I know from being on the inside of these types of cases/records request. I am expecting that this experience will make me better when hired to search and provide records due to an entirely different perspective.

Yes, I've done public records before

I have helped clients and friends file public records requests, but that was simply helping to fill out forms, craft the request, and tips on what to look for (missing threads or attachments in emails, modified documents, withheld documents, etc...). I have testified on the search for records that were claimed to be 'too difficult', and I have gone through more than enough emails to find where an email was missing. But this time, it's actually me asking for records and me having to make sure everything is done correctly, and making sure the agency stays true to the records law for my sake.

This should be a good learning experience with a hopefully good resolution. I may make the records available online to illustrate some points if I find errors, omissions, or egregious government behavior in the records (hopefully not!).

As far as the timeline...

12/2/2019    Records requested

12/9/2019     Agency replies with no date of completion or start date to produce any records but instead gives me a date of 12/23/19 just to tell me when they can give me a date that they will start producing records.

***UPDATE***

The agency gave me a production date for the year 2040. It may be a long time before I write about this experience. Yes, it's not a typo. It is the year 2040 when this request will be completed. This agency uses the Barracuda Email Archiver, which you would assume that having pre-indexed (instant search hits!), single-instance storage (no duplicates!), simple search feature (as easy as using Google!), and quick exporting of emails would not take this long...but apparently, it does.

So now the timeline of this public records request looks like this:

2019: Requested public records

2020: Jan > Feb > Mar > Apr > May > Jun > Jul > Aug > Sep > Oct > Nov > Dec

2021: Jan > Feb > Mar > Apr > May > Jun > Jul > Aug > Sep > Oct > Nov > Dec

2022: Jan > Feb > Mar > Apr > May > Jun > Jul > Aug > Sep > Oct > Nov > Dec

2023: Jan > Feb > Mar > Apr > May > Jun > Jul > Aug > Sep > Oct > Nov > Dec

2024: Jan > Feb > Mar > Apr > May > Jun > Jul > Aug > Sep > Oct > Nov > Dec

2025: Jan > Feb > Mar > Apr > May > Jun > Jul > Aug > Sep > Oct > Nov > Dec

2026: Jan > Feb > Mar > Apr > May > Jun > Jul > Aug > Sep > Oct > Nov > Dec

2027: Jan > Feb > Mar > Apr > May > Jun > Jul > Aug > Sep > Oct > Nov > Dec

2028: Jan > Feb > Mar > Apr > May > Jun > Jul > Aug > Sep > Oct > Nov > Dec

2029: Jan > Feb > Mar > Apr > May > Jun > Jul > Aug > Sep > Oct > Nov > Dec

2030: Jan > Feb > Mar > Apr > May > Jun > Jul > Aug > Sep > Oct > Nov > Dec

2031: Jan > Feb > Mar > Apr > May > Jun > Jul > Aug > Sep > Oct > Nov > Dec

2032: Jan > Feb > Mar > Apr > May > Jun > Jul > Aug > Sep > Oct > Nov > Dec

2033: Jan > Feb > Mar > Apr > May > Jun > Jul > Aug > Sep > Oct > Nov > Dec

2034: Jan > Feb > Mar > Apr > May > Jun > Jul > Aug > Sep > Oct > Nov > Dec

2035: Jan > Feb > Mar > Apr > May > Jun > Jul > Aug > Sep > Oct > Nov > Dec

2036: Jan > Feb > Mar > Apr > May > Jun > Jul > Aug > Sep > Oct > Nov > Dec

2037: Jan > Feb > Mar > Apr > May > Jun > Jul > Aug > Sep > Oct > Nov > Dec

2038: Jan > Feb > Mar > Apr > May > Jun > Jul > Aug > Sep > Oct > Nov > Dec

2039: Jan > Feb > Mar > Apr > May > Jun > Jul > Aug > Sep > Oct > Nov > Dec

2040: Final records expected to be produced.