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SALT LAKE CITY — If a government office denies access to a public record request in Utah, citizens and journalists can appeal to the State Records Committee.
And it gets a lot of appeals.
"We have had so many requests that we've been meeting twice monthly for the last little bit," said Marie Cornwall, whose term ended last month.
With so many appeals piling up, it can take months to get on the agenda, and now the wait time is growing.
The State Records Committee can't meet, Cornwall explained, because it doesn't have a quorum. The seven-member panel needs at least five members to meet and consider appeals from the public.
Cornwall, who served as a citizen representative, is one of three members whose terms have expired. Gov. Spencer Cox's office submitted all three of them for another term on July 22, but the Senate Business and Labor Confirmation Committee — which is tasked with approving them — declined.
"I think I've only seen one confirmation get declined in my two or so years in the Senate," said Sen. Nate Blouin, D-Millcreek, who serves on the confirmation committee. Blouin said he was never asked to weigh in on or consider the reappointments and didn't have any concerns about the names submitted.
"It seems political to me based off of the issues that are being heard by the Records Committee at this point," he said.
"There were a couple of decisions that we made, we thought we were following the code, that they didn't like," Cornwall said.
Perhaps, most notable, is the State Records Committee's decision in an appeal brought by the KSL Investigators. The State Records Committee decided that Attorney General Sean Reyes' work calendar is a record the public has a right to see. The committee has been consistent, granting appeals to other Utah journalists who subsequently filed similar requests.
Cornwall said despite the controversy attached to decisions like that one, the committee members diligently try to follow Utah law.
"We can only follow what's there," she said. "We don't make any gut decisions."
When the Attorney General's Office appealed its decision to the Third District Court, a judge interpreted the law similarly and sided with the State Records Committee, ordering the release of the calendar to the KSL Investigators. Hours later, the Utah Legislature rushed to pass a bill making the calendars of all public officials secret moving forward.
Déjà vu: State committee orders Utah AG to release his calendar again
A state panel has ruled in favor of transparency again, ordering the Utah Attorney General's Office to turn over his calendar to the KSL Investigators.Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, sponsored the bill making calendars secret. He is also the chairman of the committee responsible for confirming appointments to the State Records Committee.
The KSL Investigators requested an on-camera interview with Bramble on Wednesday. Instead, he said this wasn't political and that the committee has 90 days to review appointments, both by phone and in a statement.
"We received the recent appointments to the State Records Committee on July 22, we commenced our review in August and determined that there was insufficient support for these appointments by early September," Bramble wrote in a statement shared with KSL. "We promptly notified the governor's office in early September of the inadequate support for these appointees, well ahead of the Oct. 20 deadline. The governor's office currently has these positions posted on its website, and we are waiting to receive new appointments."
"I'm glad that they want to know who they're appointing," Cornwall said, "but they need to move. They can't just twiddle their thumbs."
Cornwall said she wasn't pushing to keep her position. Her concern is that an already backlogged committee is getting further behind each month it can't meet. And new members will need to be trained.
When asked who loses in the delay, Cornwall said, "Oh, I think it's the citizens of Utah that lose."
A spokesperson in Cox's office said Wednesday they're ready to submit a name for one of the three appointments and anticipate submitting two more soon. Members of the public can apply online at boards.utah.gov.
