Opinion ID: 1186902
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: application of the public records disclosure statute to municipalities

Text: The first question is whether the provisions of AS 09.25.110 [1] and AS 09.25.120 [2] are applicable to municipalities.
At common law, every interested person was entitled to the inspection of public records, including those of municipal corporations. Mushet v. Department of Public Service of City of Los Angeles, 35 Cal. App. 630, 170 P. 653 (1917); Clement v. Graham, 78 Vt. 290, 63 A. 146, 153 (1906); State ex rel. Wellford v. Williams, 110 Tenn. 549, 75 S.W. 948 (1903); State ex rel. Colescott v. King, 154 Ind. 62, 57 N.E. 535 (1900). The history of §§ .110 and .120 demonstrates that the coverage of the common law has consistently been accepted by the legislators of this state. The operative language of § .120 was first enacted by Congress for the District of Alaska as section 1039 of the Act of June 6, 1900, 31 Stat. 321. It read: Every person has a right to inspect any public writing or record in said district, and every public officer having the custody thereof is bound to permit such inspection, and to give on demand and on payment of the legal fees therefor, a certified copy of such writing or record, and such copy shall in all cases be evidence of the original. [3] The language of this section was similar to two sections in the laws of Oregon [4] which in turn had counterparts in the laws of California, [5] Montana, [6] Utah, [7] and Idaho. [8] Decisions in these jurisdictions construing their acts indicate that it has never been doubted that such acts cover municipal as well as state officials. [9] Enactment of § 1039 seems to have been meant as a codification of the common law rule with the added intent, perhaps, of eliminating the requirement that the person seeking inspection have an interest. When Congress imposed a statutory duty of disclosure in § 1039 on  every public officer it clearly intended to encompass both district and municipal officials; any contention that municipal officials were meant to be relieved of their pre-statutory disclosure duties would plainly be frivolous in view of this language. Section 1039 continued in effect until 1962, unchanged except for two additions. In 1955 the reference to public writings in recorders' offices was added, [10] followed in 1957 by the addition of the exceptions relating to medical records, those of juveniles, and those records required to be kept confidential by federal or territorial law. [11] By 1931 the District of Alaska had become an organized territory. In that year the territorial legislature enacted the forerunner of § .110. This enactment, Ch. 107, § 2 SLA 1931, [12] provided: The books, records, papers, files, accounts and transactions of every officer, board or institution in the territory are public records, and subject to such reasonable rules as the officer in charge may prescribe, shall be open to inspection by the public during all the time the respective offices shall be open for business. Except for the addition of language not relevant here, this section, too, remained unchanged until 1962. [13] Since it can hardly be questioned that municipal officers were encompassed within the meaning of the language every officer ... in this territory, municipalities were included within the provisions of the predecessor of § .110. In 1959 Alaska became a state. By that time the predecessors of §§ .110 and .120 had been recodified respectively as §§ 58-1-1 and 58-1-2 ACLA 1949. In 1962 these sections were repealed and re-enacted in their present form. Ch. 101, §§ 3.22, 3.23, SLA 1962. The 1962 re-enactment was accomplished as a part of a comprehensive revision of the entire territorial statutory code of civil procedure. This process was necessitated by statehood. The primary objective of the legislature was to delete procedural provisions from the Alaska statutes in deference to this court's power under the state constitution to promulgate rules of procedure governing proceedings in all courts. [14] The report of the Alaska House Judiciary Committee [15] makes it clear that no substantive changes in pre-existing law were intended, except in certain enumerated areas not including the inspection and copying of public records. [16] In fact the House Judiciary Committee corrected an error in the Senate Bill concerning the right to inspect records. Existing law read: Every person has a right to inspect any public writing or record in said Territory, including public writings and records in recorders' offices... . § 58-1-2 ACLA (Supp. 1958). The initial Senate Bill revised this to read: Every person has the right to inspect any public writing or record in the office of any recorder.... SB 105 § 3.25, p. 18, 2d Leg., 1st Sess. (1961). The House Committee changed this to its present form: Every person has a right to inspect any public writing or record in the state, including public writings and records in recorders' offices... . § 3.22 HCS SB 105, p. 18, 2d Leg., 1st Sess. (1961) which differs from preexisting law only in that the term the state is substituted for said Territory. The House Committee noted concerning this change: Material re inspection and copying of public records is restored because incorrectly revised. [17] It is therefore evident that the legislature had no intention of changing the scope of the public records law in the 1962 recodification. The common law view that municipalities are required to make their records available to the public was adopted by statute in 1900 and has not been changed.
In arguing that §§ .110 and .120 are not applicable, appellants focus on the phrase all agencies and departments in the first sentence of § .110. They contend, first, that this phrase refers only to agencies and departments of the state government. There is no language in §§ .110 or .120 so limiting agencies and departments. We will not read such a limitation into this language without evidence that it was intended. Appellants also argue that a municipality as such is not an agency or department and is therefore not covered by § .110. This argument, too, has little to commend it. Conceding, for the purposes of argument, that the legislature would not describe a municipality as an agency or department, it is equally true that the legislature would not describe the state government taken as a whole by using those terms. Municipal governments, as well as the government of the state, encompass agencies and departments. The agencies and departments language used in § .110 must be read as referring to the agencies and departments of the governments to which the statute applies, but that language itself does not define what the applicable level of government is. The adjective used in §§ .110 and .120 which does define the levels of government to which these sections apply is the word public. Thus, § .110 commands the public officer to make available certified copies on request. Similarly, § .120 directs every public officer to make unexcepted records available for inspection and copying. We construe the word public as used in these sections to refer both to state and local officials. This construction is in accordance with the ordinary meaning of the term public which is that the word refers to all levels of government: Having a civil, or official, character, authority, status, or the like; authoritatively serving or representing the public; as, a public official, prosecutor, or legislative body; to hold public office; also, as in titles of departments, agencies, etc., of the civic or state government; as, public health, relief, welfare or safety. [18] [Emphasis in original] It would be a corruption of the generally accepted meaning of the term public to argue, for example, that the mayor of the municipality of Anchorage is not a public officer. Again, the dictionary agrees, defining the term public office as An office or position in the service of a nation, state, city, etc. [19] The first sentence of § .120 provides that: Every person has a right to inspect a public writing or record in the state... . [Emphasis added]. The legislature chose to say in the state, not of the state. The boundaries of a statute are commonly sought and found within its terms. We think that the legislature was conscious of the fact that it was defining scope here. Had the legislature intended to limit the application of § .120 to state agencies and departments, it could easily and clearly have done so. A more recent legislature's reading of §§ .110 and .120 is apparent in the enactment in 1977 of AS 39.51.020, which provides that no public employee may be disciplined for communicating matters of public record or information under AS 09.25.110 and AS 09.25.120. Public employee was defined in Section (b) of that enactment to include any employee of any state or local government. [20] The municipalities argue that this section was enacted not because of any legislative belief that AS 09.25.110 and .120 applied to local governments but because local government employees often come into possession of state records which are public and may wish to allow the inspection of these records and need protection from discipline by their employers in so doing. We find this to be a very strained and unnatural reading of the statute. It is far more logical to conclude that the 1977 legislature assumed that §§ .110 and .120 apply to municipalities as well as to the state and concluded that municipal as well as state employees were deserving of protection. The strongest argument made by the appellants is that the inclusion of municipalities would lead to absurd results since there is no exception for records required to be kept confidential under a municipal ordinance while such an exception does exist for state law. [21] This exception, added by the territorial legislature in 1957, must be viewed in context. The public records disclosure statute had existed without any expressed exceptions for more than 50 years. There was no basis under that statute for distinguishing its application between territorial and municipal governments. As discussed supra, prior to the enactment of the statute the common law also required disclosure of public records at both the state and municipal levels. However, under the statute prior to the 1957 amendment, as under the common law, exceptions would have been permitted where there was a good reason for them. [22] While it is possible that the 1957 legislature may have committed an oversight in not including an express exception for municipal ordinances, the failure to include such an exception can hardly mean that the legislature intended to exclude, by implication, municipalities from the basic disclosure requirement. If that had been the legislature's intent, it would, at the least, have changed the words public officer in §§ 58-1-1 and 58-1-2 ACLA 1949 to territorial officer. In light of the common law rule, legislative history, and our reading of the sections, we will construe §§ .110 and .120, as we would have construed them prior to 1957, as a strong legislative declaration that records in the possession of municipalities shall be available for public inspection, subject to exceptions based on need.