The change in how I viewed government came first when I worked for local government in Illinois, then when I seriously covered government at the State Capitol.
I went from seeing government as a buddy who is there to help, to seeing it as an enterprise that is self interested at best and power hungry at worst.
That view has led me here. But I can admit that I sometimes fear I am in a bubble, a conservative echo chamber where most people are suspicious of government.
So when I see things like this, I am relieved. I am relieved to see other people see the same shortcomings in government as I do.
Tom Kamenick at the Wisconsin Transparency Project wrote a letter that everyone needs to hear. He sent it to Public Health Madison & Dane County to highlight their refusal to answer public information requests about and during the coronavirus outbreak.
He writes:
In all my years, I have never seen a more callous disregard of the obligations imposed by the Open Records Law than that displayed by Public Health Madison & Dane County. Never have I received so many complaints about the same entity, from people who have no connection to each other, each having the same exact problem, in such a short period of time. I have repeatedly heard from people who requested records months ago who have been ignored and brushed off. Your boilerplate response that I have seen many times over claims that you are too busy with the pandemic to bother with such petty inconveniences as providing records to the public.
Your delays and refusal to fulfil your basic obligations are unacceptable. You cannot use the excuse that you are busy with other work – the Open Records Law makes clear that fulfill record requests is a basic and fundamental function of all levels of government.
I have heard many claims from public health officials that providing information to the public somehow must take a backseat in the middle of a pandemic. To the contrary, it is when society faces a global threat and government claims the emergency authority to take unprecedented actions that the importance of transparency in government action reaches its apex. To engender trust in the populace – not to mention a willingness to accept the restrictions you claim are necessary – you must be forthcoming about both what you know and what you are doing. Keeping the public in the dark about the truth does not further the cause of fighting this virus. Your delays and refusal to provide records appear to be nothing more than an attempt to control the narrative and portray the pandemic in the manner you want it portrayed. You put out information about COVID to the public but refuse to allow people to see the underlying data. You present your conclusions as fact while hiding the bases for those conclusions and the processes you used to reach them. You are taking dramatic and unprecedented actions to curtail personal freedoms while at the same time denying the public the ability to see if the facts truly support such measures. Your attitude that the public is only entitled to the data you choose to release does a disservice to the people you are charged with protecting and violates both the spirit and the letter of the Open Records Law
There is more, but that is the meat of the letter.
It is the line about attitude, and the references to being inconvenienced that stick out. We have seen this time after time during this outbreak, and attitude from mayors, our governor, and of course public health bureaucrats that they are the decider. That they have the power, and we need to listen.
Kamenick nails it with this letter. The arrogance of these people. And unless and until people like Kamenick stand-up, unless and until we stand-up, that arrogance is not going to change.
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