By Miah Green
Tom Hennick knows the Connecticut Freedom of Information (FOI) law inside and out: He has been a journalist, FOI public education officer, local public official, and now a Connecticut FOI commissioner.
“We only operate effectively if we are informed,” says Hennick.
Hennick is among many open government advocates in Connecticut celebrating 50 years of access to public records and meetings. Established in 1975 by Gov. Ella Grasso, the FOI Commission continues to make decisions that benefit the public’s right to access.
Colleen Murphy, Connecticut’s FOI Commission executive director, said it is important for citizens to be aware of their rights to public records and meetings, because it gives them the right to hold the government accountable.
“It is so important for citizens to know, to be informed about their government in order to make good decisions about where they want their government to go,” says Murphy. “And if you don’t have state and federal laws to ensure that, there’s a risk that citizens will not have those tools and will be left in the dark.”
The Connecticut FOI law covers municipal and state agencies, meaning it allows access to public records and meetings, and lets the public know about what’s going on in their towns or communities. Connecticut has also been nationally recognized for open government laws due to the FOI Commission, an independent body that reviews complaints.
The History of FOI
The campaign for an FOI law in Connecticut started in 1955, after a reporter at the Waterbury Republican American newspaper realized that citizens were not allowed to attend a meeting of the Torrington Board of Education.
Editors in the state then created the Connecticut Council of Freedom of Information (CCFOI). Retired editor and former president of CCFOI, Jim H. Smith, mentioned that “two important journalists” – Carter White of the Meriden Record Journal and Bill Foote of the Hartford Courant – helped to build the CCFOI.
“We fought for freedom of expression and to get government information,” Smith says. “And it took 20 years for the government to catch up with us.”
Mitchell Pearlman, retired executive director of the Connecticut FOI Commission, said during the campaign, the Connecticut Daily Newspaper Association joined in to continue the fight for “open meetings, open government, open records” in Connecticut.
By the 1970s, there was more support within the public and government, especially following the Watergate scandal, after which former President Richard Nixon resigned.
This support allowed the FOI act to pass after it was denied many times by the state legislature’s Judiciary Committee.
In 1974, Grasso ran for and became governor, and she pushed for a state Freedom of Information Act, allowing the state government to set up an FOI Commission in June 1975. A month later, the first three members of the commission – Herbert Brucker, Helen Loy and Judith Lahey – were named by Grasso, and they agreed to take on their first case in October 1975.
Jeff Daniels, who served for Grasso as a special assistant for policy and programs, says the commission is a “statutorily created administrative agency,” or “an official body,” created with commissioners – both volunteers and staff – who work to hear and resolve cases that differentiate opinions.
Today, the state FOI Commission is supported by outside groups that also fight to protect government transparency. CCFOI, which is entering its 70th year, continues to lobby the legislature on “allied issues that relate to open government. It’s people with an interest in FOIA who will try to protect it,” Daniels says.
Using the law
Members of the public and journalists now have access to records provided by the FOI law. For journalists, that can mean revealing necessary information to the public when covering stories or events related to the public’s concern. Citizens can also access these records or meetings, in order to stay aware of details in ongoing cases.
Connecticut Foundation of Open Government – CFOG – is a non-profit group that tries to educate the public about open government issues through panel discussions and events.
Janet Manko, past president of CFOG, publisher emerita and former editor-in-chief of the Lakeville Journal, explains that the public have a chance to get a direct understanding of their rights, on the basics of “what they can know and what people may not want them to know.”
“I’ve spoken to some people who have been involved with police incidents who didn’t realize that they could access a police report about that incident,” says Manko. “And that it’s important that we as members of the public know that.”
Smith also says the right to request or access police reports and is often “the hardest nut to crack.”
Citizens can also access or request meeting minutes from a public meeting that has been previously held. An example would be a school district’s academic budget changes or change in a school’s spending on salaries.
Chris Powell, a retired Connecticut editor, says shortly after the law passed, the Somers, Connecticut school system did not want to disclose the salaries of its teachers. He filed a complaint with the FOI Commission, which ruled with a 2-1 vote that the disclosure of teachers’ salaries was indeed public information under the Connecticut state of Information law.
“I was a little distressed that there was even one Commissioner who thought the teacher salary should be exempt from disclosure,” says Powell.
Exemptions to the FOI law
Hennick mentioned the complexities of gaining access to these public records, as the decision for exempting a specific document can vary based on the situation at hand or reasoning for needing said document.
“So, I see where, by my FOIA background, it’s seen as ‘public, public, public,’ but there’s some things that say ‘well, not yet,’” says Hennick.
There are many exemptions in the FOI law that can be considered. Some of these exemptions can be: records of law enforcement agencies that are still in pre-trial or trial phase, some personal information, adoption records, records of complaints and negotiating sessions.
“A lot of times it’s a misunderstanding, or maybe there’s a compromise that can be worked out if that fails, and then it goes to a formal hearing,” says Hennick.
Matthew Kauffman, retired Hartford Courant reporter, explains an example of a FOI request being denied: a police officer’s personnel file being exempted from a case in Bristol.
“In other cases, very often with personnel records, people will say two things, personnel records that the subject of the record will object to it, and the agency will say, ‘well, then we don’t want to give it to you,’” says Kauffman.
Importance of FOI
Due to the organizations working together, Connecticut’s FOI law allows access to many records snd meetings. If the FOI law was not enacted, members of the public would not have access to information about their government.
Most importantly, the FOI law helps the public understand the workings behind government, and how well agencies and officials handle civil disputes, protect communities and provide fair education.
Journalists’ job is to help members of the public know about their access to that information, and to keep using the law to report on government actions.
“What journalists do is serve society,” says Smith. “And we can’t serve society if the government is hiding information from us. And so, we fight to get it.”
Brandon Cortés and Ben Martin contributed reporting to this piece.