FOIA, Public Records & Sunshine

Over the past year I have given myself a crash course in public records law. First there was the SEI campaign to capture the information the University collects about instructor evaluation. I successfully collected the data, but it was in such an unusable format that I have not done anything with it. I think it is about time to make another request for the data for the last year.

A few weeks ago, I began requesting data necessary to evaluate the efficiency of OSU's COTA bus fee. Eventually I was able to get the ridership statistics and later today I should finally be able to get the financial details of all payments made from OSU to COTA.

I have learned a few things from this process.

1. Government emmployees want to keep their performance secret.


2. Government employees are completely unaware of the existence or substance of public records law


3. Common government tactics to avoid releasing records: feigning ignorance, forwarding to supervisors and other departments, delivering incorrect or incomplete records.


4. Persistence, persistence, persistence.


5. While you get more bees with honey, threatening a lawsuit improves the chances of being the squeaky wheel who gets the grease.