Executive Director’s message:

Summer has sizzled; many busy days still ahead in 2025

September 3, 2025 - It seems summer barely arrived before fall started knocking at the door. 

I’ve been told that in the past, the Washington Coalition for Open Government had rather sleepy summers, even canceling a monthly board meeting at the height of the season to give our all-volunteer board a break. 

Those days are over. The dog days of summer have been both hot and active.

In August, we sent a press release and opinion column to news organizations across the state to get the word out about the latest activities by lawmakers that put transparency and open government at risk. Since then, the piece was published by at least 17 news organizations and counting.

On June 26, we called attention to an unfortunate Washington State Supreme Court ruling that state collective bargaining agreements are exempt from the state’s Public Records Act.

We were pleased June 2 to point to the creation of a student investigative reporting fund by three current and former students of Western Washington University who received a settlement involving a years-long lawsuit against their school in 2024. Erasmus Baxter, Asia Fields and Julia Furukawa donated $42,000 to launch a fund that will help WWU students continue their important training and work. Learn more about the case and their journey here. They were honored this month in San Francisco for their effort with the First Amendment Award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

We’re also anxiously awaiting Gov. Bob Ferguson’s decision on how to handle the auto-deletion of state agencies' Teams messages. It’s been over six months now, and we expect an answer. We asked to be a part of the discussions before a decision was made but received no response to our requests. We’re disappointed Ferguson has been unwilling to hear from the coalition on this matter.  We hope he will do the right thing and prevent agencies from returning to the weekly auto-deletion of messages on the assumption they are “transitory” and not important enough for the public to see. We know that millions of messages are already gone forever. It’s inexcusable, and we want an end to these types of assaults on the Public Records Act and the people’s right to know. The governor can make that simple — choose transparency over secrecy. 

Those are just some of the higher-profile activities we’ve been monitoring.

In the background, we’ve made some internal adjustments at WashCOG to help bolster our effectiveness both now and in the future. A generous donor funded implementation of a system to help us better manage our own records and activities. It’s a system that helped us deliver this newsletter to you today.

Such gifts, both monetary and in-kind, help us keep overhead as low as possible and support our volunteers as we attempt to meet growing challenges. 

While we fought off several attempts to weaken the Public Records Act during the last legislative session, we are already hearing that a couple of problematic bills may return with reinforcements next year. (For those interested in regular reports during the session, check out OlympiaWatch.)

We’re getting prepared, but please watch for our calls to action. Sometimes, the most effective deterrent in these battles is public opposition. If you see an email from us marked “Urgent,” we are probably calling for backup. We may ask you to contact your legislator and urge action. Or we may request you send a letter to the editor of your closest news publication, email your contacts throughout Washington to spread the word, or share our posts on social media. It’s been a long time since the public was called to march, but don’t rule it out. 

These are tough days for open government, but people like you who understand transparency’s importance can hold the doors open for all of us.

Thank you for supporting WashCOG and open government.

Let’s shine the light!