Add the state’s biggest public disclosure watchdog to the chorus of litigants taking aim at Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist’s office.
The nonprofit Washington Coalition for Open Government filed suit Monday against Pierce County, accusing Lindquist and his staff of violating the state’s public disclosure law.
Coalition President Toby Nixon said the organization rarely sues government agencies, but members of the WCOG board believed it was necessary because of “egregious” violations by the prosecutor’s office.
“The WCOG board felt Pierce County’s continued disregard for the intent and spirit of the law has been so blatant, we needed to seek a court remedy,” Nixon said. “We are suing because of the ongoing wrongful withholding of records and failing to adopt rules to protect and preserve records.”
Asked for comment Tuesday, Lindquist did not respond directly. An emailed reply came from deputy prosecutor Dan Hamilton, a team leader in the prosecutor’s civil division. He called the lawsuit “baseless” and attacked William Crittenden, WCOG’s attorney.
“Though he (Crittenden) obtained all disclosable records he requested from the County, he sues because he complains they were mailed rather than emailed as he demanded, not scanned into the format he demanded, and so on,” Hamilton wrote. “We expect this publicity stunt disguised as a lawsuit will be dismissed.”
The WCOG lawsuit is related to a long-running case involving text messages on Lindquist’s personal phone.
Since April, Crittenden has asked for various records related to the case, believing they will show a conflict of interest: Lindquist is a personal party to the case, but he also supervises the attorneys who are defending the county’s position.
Lindquist and his senior attorneys insist no conflict exists.
The topic is a key aspect of the phone-records case, which has triggered a blistering legal battle among Lindquist, County Executive Pat McCarthy and the county council. Arguments will be heard today in Thurston County Superior Court.
The coalition lawsuit is a separate matter.
It accuses Lindquist’s office of engaging in creative obstruction by delaying its responses to records requests, refusing to provide answers by email, providing hundreds of blackened pages without clear legal explanation and refusing to provide records in electronic form.
Those actions reflect “the intent to be as unhelpful to the requester as possible, to cause delay, and to force WCOG to pay for useless paper copies of completely redacted records,” the lawsuit states.
The coalition, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, tracks developments in disclosure law, and advocates for transparency at the Legislature and in the courts. It often files friend-of-the-court briefs in key legal cases involving public disclosure.
While the coalition’s lawsuit continues to seek the underlying public records, the complaint targets the prosecutor’s manner of responding to the requests.
