Kootenai County officials seek to hone information delivery to public

COEUR d'ALENE - It's the public's information.

But sometimes Kootenai County has trouble getting it to the people, though county officials say it's not always their fault.

There are problems with public records request forms, processing massive numbers of requests, press releases that never get written and promoting the county's work and activities. Kootenai County commissioners, in a meeting Wednesday with other county officials, heard concerns and a possible solution.

Kootenai County Commission Chairman David Stewart said the board is well aware of the concerns about public records requests.

"I've seen (records request) emails myself that are eight-pages long," Stewart said. "And it's just a meaningless diatribe of information."

He suggested the county find a way to get more people to be brief and to-the-point in their descriptions of documents and records sought. The responses would improve, he said.

He would also like to find some way to force more people to use the county's records request forms, though the laws in Idaho aren't on his side on either point.

Stewart said long-winded records requests are costing the county a lot of money to process.

"It's extremely time-consuming," he said.

"We all know who we're talking about," said Commissioner Dan Green. "We're talking about one person."

That one person is Frank Davis of Allied Bail Bonds in Coeur d'Alene.

Davis has buried the county in an avalanche of public records requests.

A public information request log for all of 2014 - which was provided to The Press by the county auditor's office - shows Davis submitted roughly 200 records requests last year.

Davis, who has a history with the county involving past lawsuits, didn't return a message left by The Press Thursday seeking comment.

"This week alone I have basically worked for one citizen of Kootenai County," said County Clerk Jim Brannon, referring to his work processing requests for Davis.

Brannon brought forward what he believes might be a possible solution, giving him and other elected officials and department heads some relief.

The county could hire or appoint a public information officer, Brannon said. That person could take on public records requests and media inquiries, he said.

That way, once information is requested, the public information officer, often known as a PIO, could coordinate the effort, Brannon said.

That would be most useful when multiple departments would need to be involved to fulfill a request.

"By not having a centralized clearinghouse, the county is struggling with keeping things in order," Brannon said.

Kootenai County Sheriff Ben Wolfinger said he has staff handling public information, so the county PIO wouldn't deal with sheriff's office business.

PIOs serving law enforcement need special training, so information distributed doesn't harm investigations or prosecutions.

That said, Wolfinger completely understands the county's need for a PIO.

"I think the county, as a whole, doesn't do well in promoting itself like a PIO can," Wolfinger said.

As for the other departments in the county, Brannon said it's not yet clear who is willing to "buy in" to share the services of a PIO.

"An entity of our size, for us not to have someone representing us to the media and with a unified message seems a little bit 1980 to me," Brannon said.

Stewart would like to see the county hire a PIO.

He said it would be a good idea to have all public information requests, with the exception of those to the sheriff, funneled to one individual. He said having a PIO would save the county money.

Having the county's different departments working independently on records requests, and not always being aware of what requests others are trying to fulfill, is very inefficient and can lead to duplication of work, he said.

"That's taking up a lot of valuable time and being very disruptive to government," Stewart said. "Taxpayers are paying a lot of money for this kind of thing."

Pat Braden, a civil attorney for the county, said a public records request policy could help, too.

Within the policy, Braden said, the county could insert language encouraging brevity and the use of county-designated forms.

But the county can't do any more than encourage, because the public has plenty of freedom when it comes to submitting requests.

Braden plans to draft a public records request policy for the county. Not having a written policy and just saying the county will simply follow the law isn't enough.

"The law is pretty convoluted in places," Braden told the board Wednesday.

He plans to bring a draft policy to the next meeting of county elected officials.

Green said he is all for improving the process. But he's also tired of just talking about it.

"We've been screwing with this for the better part of a year, and we're still fumbling," Green said.