Columbia County fights back against 'government transparency advocate'

DAYTON—Columbia County is just one of many Washington government entities that received a Public Record Request from self-proclaimed ‘government transparency advocate’ Eric Hood.

The state Public Records Act requires that state and local agencies disclose all records to the public unless the law specifically exempts them. Agencies must reply to requests within five business days to give an estimate of when records will be available and later provide a log to explain any redactions or exemptions. Agencies are allowed to charge for the actual cost of providing records.

According to documents filed on March 8, 2022, in the Office of the Clerk of Court, Hood sent an email to the Columbia County Auditor, Anne Higgins, on January 20, 2019, that read: I heard the county was recently audited by the state auditor. May I have all records the county got from the auditor and all records of the county’s response to the auditor to the audit report?

The same day, Hood received an emailed response including the 2017 Accountability and Financial/Federal audit performed by the Washington State Auditor’s Office. The county’s responses to the state auditor were also included. Hood confirmed he had received the documents but had not had a chance to read them. He asked if the auditor would be sending additional documents. Without an additional Public Records request, the answer was no.

Less than 12 months later, Hood filed a complaint about violations of the Public Records Act, to which Columbia County filed an answer, asserting that all responsive documents had been provided.

Columbia County Prosecutor Dale Slack told The Times that the county will be fighting back against Hood, with the case being heard in Franklin County Superior Court.

When asked if Columbia County had considered offering a settlement, Slack said that he did not feel like there was any reasonable settlement.

“Our position is that Anne answered the request as it was written,” Slack explained. “If he claims that he was owed other documents, that was not what our reading of his request was. Any settlement that we would enter into would be what we call in the legal world a nuisance settlement.”

He said a nuisance settlement pays someone to leave them, the county, alone.

“The commissioners and I would be making a settlement to make someone go away when we don’t think we did anything wrong,” Slack said.

He estimated that the county’s legal fees are upwards of $20,000, adding that a similar amount was considered as a settlement in discussions at the outset of the case.

“We would rather spend that money to have the truth come out than give it to him,” Slack added.

To date, Hood has been awarded an estimated $820,000 from cases involving the Public Records Act. His first lawsuit was against the South Whidbey School District in 2012. In an interview in 2021 to the Everett Herald, Hood said his first lawsuit was personal and can not disclose the case under the terms of the settlement. It was from this experience that Hood appears to have made PRA violation his mission. He has filed over 100 PRA lawsuits against school districts, hospital districts, counties, cities, and colleges. Hood claims his intention is to make agencies follow the law protecting government transparency. Ironically, many of the litigants claim to have fulfilled the requests but settled to save taxpayer money. The terms of these settlements often are excluded from PRA requests.

Slack said that in the early filings of the suit, he had contacted the other counties who received the same request, did the same thing, and received the same suit. The county prosecutors were talking about trying to fight Hood as a joint entity, however, their legislative bodies decided they would rather settle than take the matter to court.

“I want to make it clear that I think the PRA is a great thing,” Slack said. “It is very valuable. I think governments can run roughshod over people if they are not subject to accountability and response to the people they serve, but, this particular lawsuit and its reasons for it has nothing to do with what the PRA was intended to do. It’s just somebody with a money-making scheme who is doing well at it apparently.”