Something to Hide or Just Lacking Judgment?

In a democracy, government is supposed to be accountable to the people--but you’d never know it based on the secretive actions at City Hall in recent weeks. Everyone from city attorneys to city auditors suddenly has begun denying the public and the media access to critical documents.

Want to know what caused the city’s sewage outfall pipe to rupture last spring, fouling local beaches with hundreds of millions of gallons of partially treated sewage for months? Or exactly what auditors found when they reviewed tens of thousands of dollars in questionable expenditures by Tom Liegler, the Convention Center director who was forced to resign? Or what the attorney appointed to investigate the City Hall sex-and-hush-money scandal based his lengthy report on?

You may want to know, but, at least for now, you aren’t likely to find out.

The city attorney’s office says it won’t release the results of the $350,000 inquiry into the sewage spill. The auditor’s office won’t release the results of three audits conducted on Liegler’s spending as the Convention Center’s manager. And Josiah Neeper, the attorney who investigated the alleged affair between former city Planning Director Robert Spaulding and planner Susan Bray, destroyed all the notes and documents used to compile his report.

Meanwhile, the city attorney’s office recently refused to release Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller’s report to the city clearing Liegler of any criminal wrongdoing. To its credit, the district attorney’s office released the report itself the next day. But key backup information in the hands of the auditor’s office is still unavailable.

There is no legitimate reason to keep any of these documents under wraps. Each of them addresses issues of vital public interest. When government agencies choose to hide such information, the public has every reason to wonder if it is being kept in the dark to cover up malfeasance. It is, after all, taxpayers who ultimately pay for government foul-ups.

So why this sudden penchant for secrecy? Do these agencies have something to hide? Or are they merely displaying poor civic judgment? Either way, the public has a right to know--and the government that serves the public has the duty to make sure that it does.