One can’t fault State Representative Jill Chambers for lacking ambition–she’s definitely one of the highest profile legislatures in the state capitol. This morning, I heard on the radio that she is proposing some massive updates to our current open records laws. From what I read, it sounds like good stuff. Here’s what she had to say about it on Peach Pundit:
The purpose of this project is to make this statute crystal clear so that anyone who reads it can understand the law. Of all the laws in Georgia, the Sunshine laws should be easy to understand.
I’m concerned that revision will require all requests be in writing instead of requiring response to verbal requests as is the case now because willful and knowing failure to respond will be a felony, and a felony prosecution in connection with a verbal request is unwarranted. Surely revision can retain the right to make verbal requests and require a response or incur a meaningful penalty.
I, personally, think it’s silly to require response to a verbal request, and I would never have considered making an important request verbally. I’d like better documentation of the process, both as a requester and as a government employee.
Responding to a verbal request represents good service. The extra effort on both the part of the requester making and responding entity fulfilling written requests is doubly waseful. (Tongue in cheek—a simple requirement for a request in writing bureaucratically evolves into a form which one has to find and then when received by government can be set aside because the form wasn’t completed properly, something was omitted, form sent to the wrong location etc.)
People are smart enough to know if a request should be in writing and therefore documentation (and I usually do, depending on agency) should be left to the citizen. My point was that a felony prosecution (in my opinion) can’t be made on failure to act on a verbal request, and that I was that convenience and efficiency would be traded for stiffer penalties (not that that has to happen, but that it might).