Info-hungry citizens making a difference in government openness

Friday, April 21st 2006, 8:33 am

By: News On 6

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) _ In nine months, Ryan Nees has gone from a precocious, 15-year-old filmmaker to an open records activist whose latest foray cost the city of Kokomo more than $11,000.

Nees won that amount in attorney fees this week after the city lost a lawsuit he brought to force Kokomo Mayor Matt McKillip to turn over the e-mail addresses of subscribers to the city's electronic newsletter. Nees sued under Indiana's open records law after receiving campaign messages upon subscribing to the newsletter.

``I didn't so much become an advocate for public access until I was denied,'' said Nees, who will join journalists and advocates at the national Freedom of Information Summit, which runs Friday and Saturday in Indianapolis. ``There was a certain amount of indignation there.''

Ordinary citizens, from parents attending school board meetings to businessmen seeking county records, no longer are putting up with bureaucrats telling them records or meetings are not open to the public. Instead, they are turning to government-appointed public access counselors to help navigate laws in their quests for information.

Record-keeping varies by state, making national statistics unavailable, but an annual report by Indiana's public access counselor provides a snapshot of who's seeking government information that isn't readily accessible.

During the 12 months ending last June, 824 of the 1,681 inquiries and complaints _ 49 percent _ came from the public, compared with 204 from the news media. The rest came from government agencies.

``When we base the right of access on the media, it begins to be viewed by lawmakers as a special interest,'' said Charles Davis, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition, based at the University of Missouri. ``It is absolutely critical that we broaden the conversation and make it about the people's right to access, and not the media's right to access.''

Public access complaints filed in Indiana over the past year include an activist seeking enforcement records from the state's Department of Environmental Management, an Elwood man challenging closed meetings on the redistricting of elementary schools and a LaPorte woman fighting to open private meetings of the city's Board of Public Works.

Nees, now a 16-year-old sophomore at Western High School outside Kokomo, was seeking information last summer on a city disciplinary hearing that he documented in a student film about censorship. Getting those records was no problem, but when he went after the list of the 1,400 e-mail subscribers _ which he suspected the Republican mayor was using for political purposes _ the young Democratic activist met resistance.

He enlisted the state's public access counselor, Karen Davis, and took the mayor to court. On Monday, Judge Lynn Murray ordered the city to pay the full amount of fees sought by Nees' attorney.

The victory was bittersweet. The Indiana General Assembly has also amended state law to let government officials withhold lists of e-mail addresses.

Davis said people like Nees are making a difference.

``Most people would think of a 16-year-old as pretty powerless,'' she said. ``It really is amazing what one individual did in that one case.''