01:00 AM EST on Sunday, March 12, 2006

By PAUL EDWARD PARKER
Journal staff writer

More than just a new year was about to dawn on Dec. 31, 1947, in Rhode Island. A new era was about to open in the people's access to government records, as The Providence Journal and the City of Pawtucket fired the opening salvos in a four-year battle over who owned public records.

The stage had been set a year earlier for The Journal - and others in Rhode Island -- to seek greater access to public records. In 1946, Congress passed a law that, on its face, would open up public records kept by the federal government.

So, on New Year's Eve, two Journal reporters asked the Pawtucket city clerk to show them a resolution the City Council had just passed that granted tax abatements to a variety of property owners.

"See me tomorrow," the clerk said.

The reporters pointed out that "tomorrow" would be a holiday, New Year's Day.

"See me Friday," the clerk said.

But, for more than a week, the clerk was too busy to see them.

The Journal sued Pawtucket, first in state court, then in federal court. Every time the newspaper won a court victory, the city appealed, all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States.

While Pawtucket and The Journal were fighting it out, others were seeking records from other government bodies, including a list of city employees in Providence and minutes of a closed West Warwick School Committee meeting at which bids were opened and contracts awarded.

The public officials took the position that the records belonged to them and they didn't have to show them to anyone.

On Feb. 9, 1948, the Pawtucket City Council adopted a resolution that opened its tax-abatement records to just about anybody except: Japanese, Russian and Chinese citizens, confirmed criminals -- and The Providence Journal.

"The worst zealot wouldn't say that anybody on the face of the earth should be permitted to see these records," said Alderman Raymond F. Henderson. "This resolution means that anybody of good character can see the records. Boiled down, it means that some people have no right to see them, no possible interest, and it's none of their business."

"In denying the so-called Providence Journal the tax-abatement records, the City Council is doing a very good thing," said Councilman Robert A. Magill. "The City Council is using its judgment to see that the records get into the proper hands. The Journal only wants to pit neighbor against neighbor and to try to create the idea that the administration has something to hide."

THE JOURNAL and others fighting for the records argued that public records belonged to the public.

"It is fundamental that if the public business is to be truly public, the records of governmental agencies must be open to public inspection," the newspaper said in a Jan. 10, 1948, editorial. "But in the area of municipal finance, the public is often denied the right to see and know what is going on, although it's the public's money -- millions of dollars of it annually -- that is involved."

The editorial backed a bill submitted to the General Assembly by Sen. Harvey S. Reynolds, a Providence Republican. His bill would have required all municipal financial records -- except welfare rolls -- to be open to inspection during normal business hours to anyone who requested them.

Under the bill, the requester would not have to give a reason for wanting the records and could sue in court if denied. Reynolds's bill passed the Senate, but died in the House, a fate many public-records bills have met.

In December 1951, the Supreme Court refused to hear Pawtucket's appeal of a lower-court order that the city give the tax-abatement records to the Journal.

Harold L. Cross, a lawyer who had studied public-records issues for the American Society of Newspaper Editors, called the decision "a major victory in the critical battle for freedom of information in the public interest."

PAWTUCKET MAYOR Lawrence A. McCarthy, who had taken office that year, urged the City Council to adopt a resolution congratulating The Journal for its victory.

"You are losing a golden opportunity to go on record as favoring one of the bulwarks of this great country -- the freedom of the press and the right of the public to see public records."

The council refused.

"I think we ought to get some credit," said Alderman Henderson. "It takes two sides to get to the Supreme Court. If we hadn't opposed, it never would have reached there."

The following year, the city removed from the books the resolution that had barred The Journal access to the abatement records. Later, it adopted a city charter that guaranteed public access to city records -- a provision still in force today.

BUT THE FIGHT for public records was not over.

By 1966, it had become obvious that the federal law passed in 1946 to open federal records was having the opposite effect.

The 1946 version only allowed "persons properly and directly concerned" with a given record to have access. Even then, records could be withheld "for good cause found" or "in the public interest." And people denied records could not appeal.

A Republican committee report on the law said: "No government employee at any level believes that the 'public interest' would be served by disclosure of his failures or wrongdoings."

The new law, signed on July 4 by President Lyndon Johnson, made sweeping changes. Records were declared to be public unless they fell under specific exemptions to safeguard national security and privacy. Anybody could get public records, whether or not they were "properly and directly concerned." And they could appeal to the courts, if denied.

The new federal law was called the Freedom of Information Act, and it would touch off a flurry of similar state laws across the country.

The fight would continue in the Ocean State.

IN 1974, The Journal asked the state Health Department for the reports of all the inspections it had conducted. "It created a major stir on the state side when we asked for all those records," said Joseph V. Cavanagh Jr., the Journal's lawyer. "Sunshine, or access, was a new wave, but, in Rhode Island, we had no statute."

After a court fight, The Journal got some of the records it had sought.

And, in 1979, the state passed the Access to Public Records Act, making Rhode Island the 49th state to adopt a Freedom of Information statute. The new law resembled Sen. Reynolds's proposal from 1948 in that anyone can request records without giving a reason and can sue if denied.

Like under the federal law, records in Rhode Island are presumed to be open unless they fall under an exemption. That means documents as diverse as school budgets and police logs, voter registrations and tax assessments, zoning maps and beautician's licenses are available to the public.

Skirmishes since then have led to refinements.

In 1990, The Journal took a case to the state Supreme Court, seeking the name, title, salary and similar information about every state employee. The court ruled that, the way the state law was written, such information was not public. The legislature then amended the law, bringing to an end a battle that had begun in the city of Providence in the 1940s.

Cavanagh says, despite the need for improvements, the law has accomplished one of its chief goals: fostering the notion that public records belong to the people, not government officials.

"I think we have a society that's getting accustomed to the idea that these records are an important part of public knowledge," he said. "It's education and patience."