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What has been entirely unreasonable and disgraceful is the fact that the university responded to the public debate over whether its position was correct by attempting to keep other, undoubtedly public records secret in an apparent attempt to make it difficult for reporters to inform the public about the situation. For that, the regents and administration should be ashamed.
The Attorney General’s Office issued its formal opinion last week that NMSU didn’t violate the Inspection of Public Records Act in its dealings with me and the Las Cruces Sun-News on a number of requests for documents related to the NMSU Foundation.
Though I and others disagree with the attorney general on some points, there’s a deeper issue to be considered: Regardless of whether NMSU violated the law, there’s no doubt that the university has engaged in repeated attempts to stonewall the public. What the attorney general’s opinion means is that, at least at this point, NMSU gets away with it.
Examples of stonewalling
Consider these points:
• The university made the ridiculous assertion, after a new agreement with the foundation was approved by the regents on July 23, that the document wasn’t public because it hadn’t yet been signed by all parties. Anything that appears on an agenda of a regents meeting is public record. In fact, most documents are public long before that.
The university backed down and provided me with the document only after I publicly asked the attorney general to intervene, so NMSU avoided a violation, but it still made the initial attempt to chase me away by denying the records request.
• In May, I requested via e-mail a copy of the university’s agreement with the foundation that was in effect at the time. The university faxed it to me the same day – a pleasantly surprising response to my request considering that, by law, the university is allowed 15 days to comply with requests for public records.
Then came the controversy over whether donor information should be public. And the university decided to make it difficult for me to obtain records. In July, I was told that my records requests that were sent via e-mail weren’t valid.
By law, the university and other public bodies are required to respond to written and verbal requests for records, but there are only penalties for failing to comply with a written request – and state law isn’t clear on whether e-mails meet the definition of “writing.”
It’s ironic that university Attorney Bruce Kite responded via e-mail to my e-mail requests to tell me they weren’t valid. He could have responded via the fax or phone numbers I provided on my records requests. Frankly, I preferred his response via e-mail, just like I would have preferred making the requests via e-mail instead of hand-delivering them.
E-mails are considered “writing” in many instances in federal law. E-mail is a valid form of writing and communication in the legal world in which Kite works. Most state agencies and local governments in
Kite told the Attorney General’s Office that NMSU generally treats e-mail requests as valid written requests. Generally? As in, the university wants to leave the door open to have the ability, from time to time, to stonewall a reporter or someone else making a request?
An effort to push for change is needed
That archaic lack of a policy has led the Albuquerque Journal to slam NMSU and the Las Cruces Sun-News to call for it to develop a formal policy that it will treat e-mail requests as valid.
But I’m not optimistic. The regents and Martin aren’t exactly champions of open government. This is the same board that currently makes it difficult for anyone to provide public input at its meetings, indicating that the board doesn’t want to hear from the public. That, combined with the stonewalling on public records requests, suggests that those in charge of NMSU aren’t interested in engaging or involving the public in their decisions, as if they believe they know what’s best and don’t need the involvement of anyone else.
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