Your right to know

On Dec. 8, a columnist for this newspaper made the wholly uninformed claim that I have no desire to “help taxpayers” understand and apply the FOIA. But, he confidently asserts, that “wasn’t always the attitude,” because prior attorneys general helped Average Joes by writing “informal opinions for them” about the FOIA.

The claim that I’m not interested in helping taxpayers understand and apply the FOIA is false and reflects how poorly informed the columnist is about what my office does.

Readers may assume from the columnist’s comments that I stopped the process of issuing informal opinions. Not so. The process was stopped more than 30 years ago because the number of requests far exceeded the office’s ability to respond.

Since my first day in office, I’ve made responsiveness to Arkansans one of my top priorities. For starters, I re-opened the office so that any citizen who needs help can receive that in person. (When I took office, for example, Apple Maps listed our office as “Permanently Closed.”)

I also made sure all our phone lines worked and that someone would actually answer if you called—neither of which was the case when I started. In fact, before I took office, one state senator requested that I find a way to fix the phones.

The backbone of these improvements has been the outstanding staff I added to my Constituent Services team. Every week, they field thousands of calls and emails from Arkansans. Many of those calls and emails raise the exact kinds of questions that used to be addressed in informal opinions. Now, they are addressed by my Constituent Services staff, in consultation with my attorneys in the Opinions and FOIA Division.

Many of these communications conclude by my staff directing citizens to where they can find the answer in the FOIA Handbook or in a previously published AG opinion. This is exactly the sort of answer given by many of the informal opinions that the columnist claims to miss.

The columnist seems entirely unaware of the many other things my office does to help people understand and apply the FOIA:

■ So far this year, my staff have issued 28 FOIA opinions to Arkansans regarding custodians’ decisions about whether to disclose certain employment-related public records. Of those 28, 20 have concluded that more information must be disclosed to the requesting party.

■ So far this year, experts on the FOIA in my Opinions and FOIA Division have provided five FOIA trainings to a combined 300 people, and we’re already planning more for next year.

■ As part of my senior staff, I hired one of the state’s top experts on the FOIA. He has researched and drafted nearly 200 FOIA opinions for three attorneys general, represented both custodians and requesters in FOIA disputes at all levels of the Arkansas court system, and provided roughly 150 FOIA trainings to a combined total of well over 12,000 people. People all across the state routinely seek his counsel on FOIA matters. To recognize the importance of his continuing contribution, I’ve recently updated his title from Deputy Attorney General for Opinions to Deputy Attorney General for Opinions and FOIA.

■ My office is working on the next edition of the FOIA Handbook, which is published in conjunction with the Arkansas Press Association. My office distributes thousands of these paper and electronic booklets throughout the state.

So please don’t be misled: My office has extensive FOIA resources and uses those resources every day to help public officials and private citizens.