PORT ANGELES — Clallam County officials are looking for ways to manage public records more efficiently.
The three commissioners Monday agreed to schedule a June 30 special meeting with other elected officials and department heads to discuss public records management and Public Records Act compliance.
“That would be a starting point that I see, listen to them and see what they have to say,” Commissioner Bill Peach said in a board work session.
The public records discussion was prompted by a request for a full-time public records officer.
Trish Holden, clerk of the Board of County Commissioners, has been serving as a part-time records officer.
“I think that the magnitude of the undertaking likely warrants the work of a full-time person,” county Prosecuting Attorney Mark Nichols told commissioners.
“That could be someone currently with the organization. It could be someone new.”
Policy update
Nichols and Holden are working to update county administrative policy 320: Inspection and copying of public records.
Holden recommended that commissioners adopt a new ordinance “so that you have force of law behind you.”
To address inefficiencies in the current system, Holden suggested that each department designate a public records specialist.
She and Nichols proposed formal public records training for all employees.
Nichols told commissioners that the civil division of his office spends significant time helping other departments process public records requests.
Former Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Kristina Nelson-Gross, now the Sequim city attorney, spent four to five hours per day for several months helping other departments comply with the Public Records Act, Nichols said.
“The problem from my perspective is that it pulls my civil division off its primary function of providing day-to-day operational advice for county departments, which is really what we’re here for,” Nichols said.
‘Tremendous burden’
County Administrator Jim Jones agreed that the public records support has been a “tremendous burden” for the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
“We need to effect a certain amount of cultural change within the organization,” Commissioner Mark Ozias said.
“Public records need to be at the forefront of our thinking and not an afterthought.”
Failure to comply with public records requests can expose the county to liability.
Other jurisdictions have gone bankrupt because of public records mismanagement, Ozias said.
“As far as I’m concerned, this needs to be one of our top priorities, and going into budget season I think we should be very prepared to address this,” Ozias said.
Commissioners said they would gather input from elected officials and department heads in next week’s special meeting and schedule another work session on public records.
“The reality is we’re already spending a huge amount of resource doing this, and it makes great sense to figure out if there’s any way we can do it more efficiently,” Ozias said.
Defunct committee
Commissioners also will consider restarting the Information and Office Technology Advisory Committee, which prioritized Clallam County information and technology projects until it folded more than a decade ago.
Doing so could help the county improve public records management through technology, officials said.
“There’s no real reason why it ended,” Commissioner Mike Chapman said of the defunct committee.
“It probably would be a great idea to kind of pull the paperwork, see what it looked like and reconstitute it.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
