Pacific Northwest cities struggle to fulfill public records requests

Think Out Loud

Cities across the Pacific Northwest are struggling to handle a growing number of requests for public records such as court documents, police reports and emails between public officials. To test those systems, the investigative news outlet InvestigateWest sent the same records request to 15 cities across Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Some took months, or charged hundreds of dollars, to fulfill the requests.

Daniel Walters reports on democracy and extremism for InvestigateWest. He joins us to share more about what he found and the vital role public records play in holding governments and agencies accountable.