News & Commentary

Five local organizations dedicated to open government have raised concerns that rules proposed by the Rhode Island Judiciary to implement a new electronic filing system for court documents could lead to increased secrecy and limited access to important court records by the public.

Ten years after Rhode Island law began requiring police departments to post online their police complaint forms and procedures, some departments are still not in compliance with some of the law’s basic requirements, a report issued Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island has found. The requirement, contained in the Racial Profiling Prevention Act of 2004, was designed to make it easier for victims of police misconduct to file complaints with departments. Over the years, some police officials have cited the rarity of complaints they receive to minimize claims about the prevalence of racial profiling or other misconduct.

An audit of the 2012 amendments to the state’s Access to Public Records Act (APRA) shows that a number of state agencies and municipal departments, in particular the police, apparently are in violation of the changes to the law. In addition, enforcement of parts of the law appears to be weak or nonexistent.

Calling it “a new low” in the state’s enforcement of the Access to Public Records Act (APRA), five open government groups today blasted an opinion issued by the Attorney General’s office which held that public bodies can charge members of the public for the time it takes to compose a letter denying an open records request.

An audit of open government practices in Rhode Island has found that six municipalities and 10 out of 24 surveyed state and quasi-public agencies are seemingly in violation of the Access to Public Records Act (APRA) by failing to certify that they have any employees trained to grant or deny public record requests.

In an important victory for open government, a judge ruled today that the RI Board of Education violated the open meetings law when it held a secret meeting last September to discuss whether to reexamine the Board’s controversial “high stakes testing” graduation requirement. The Board held the secret meeting in response to a formal petition filed by the ACLU of Rhode Island and numerous other organizations for reconsideration of the testing mandate.

The ACLU of Rhode Island has today filed an open records lawsuit on behalf of the Olneyville Neighborhood Association (ONA) in an effort to obtain documents that the group wants to share with the community relating to the state’s cooperation with federal immigration officials. The lawsuit, against the RI Department of Corrections and the RI State Police, seeks a court order waiving the significant fees the agencies want to charge ONA before turning over the requested records.

The Rhode Island Board of Education today was found in violation of an open government law for the second time in six months — this time for failing to properly respond to a petition by the ACLU of Rhode Island and numerous other organizations seeking a public hearing on the Board’s controversial “high stakes testing” graduation requirement.

The ACLU of Rhode Island is asking a court to impose fines against the Pawtucket School District for failing to respond to an open records request the ACLU submitted in October. The lawsuit, filed in Superior Court by ACLU volunteer attorney Karen Davidson, charges that the district unlawfully failed to respond to two requests from the ACLU for public documents. It is the second time in two years the ACLU has sued Pawtucket schools for ignoring the open records law.