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State and local governments are bound by the public records and open public meetings acts.

But do they comply?

The answer all too frequently, is no.

And millions of dollars in fines and penalties have been paid by taxpayers on behalf of the very taxing authorities that are supposed to be serving them.

But the state now has Morgan D'amaro serving as the AG's chief Transparency Council.

Will he usher in a new era of transparency or side with the government against transparency?

That's part of the discussion tonight with chief transparency counsel Morgan D'amaro.

Music.

I tell you, every year, and in the interest of transparency again tonight, I am a member of the Washington Coalition for Open Government.

So this year, every Friday night in March, we're doing programs in conjunction with the annual celebration of open government known as Sunshine Week.

We're turning it, however, into sunshine Month.

And speaking of Sunshine Week, next Friday morning on March 13th is the annual Sunshine Breakfast at Embassy Suites in Bellevue.

It's informative and a great way to get involved in protecting your right to know.

Tickets are still available at dot org.

I'd love to see you there.

Washington State was one of the nation's front runners when it comes to open government.

You might know the background, but here's a refresher.

In 1972, Washingtonians overwhelmingly passed initiative 276, the Public Disclosure Act.

Our CW 4256 OP 30 reads in part, the people in delegating authority do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know.

And the rest of the language is equally uncompromising.

But enforcing the act has been a nightmare.

The public records ombuds in the AG's office were supposed to facilitate transparency.

But that position came and went over the years.

Now, though, there's a new public records and open government unit in the AG's office, and as of December 2025, Morgan D'amaro runs that shop, holding the title of Chief Transparency Council.

Morgan, thanks so much for coming to northwest.

Now to, start us off with our sunshine month here on northwest.

Now, talking about the importance of government transparency and open records, I'm going to let you know that I am a lute.

I know you're from Linfield, and so I will try to keep this, civil.

We had a lot of, big time football games back in the day when you and I were in those schools.

Talk a little bit, though.

That's a nice segue into.

Where did you go to school?

How'd you come up?

Where'd you grow up?

Talk a little bit about your background.

Well, you know, grew up here in, in northwest North Seattle's where, you know, I call home originally, went to, you know, in Gilmore High School up in Bothell and then, went down to down to Oregon, went to Linfield and became a Wildcat.

So we'll just have to to agree to disagree on that one.

And then after after on my undergrad move back in state, I was doing some environmental work.

And then after about five years, decided to go to law school, over in Montana at the University of Montana in Missoula, which, you know, it was one of those really tough decisions in terms of, you know, ending what I was doing.

But going to law school in Montana, in Missoula is just a beautiful city.

Yeah.

Did you get into hunting and fishing a little bit?

I did some hunting when I was over there.

Always been fishing.

Grew up by working in a sporting goods store.

Nice fishing all over the place.

And so it was that was part of the analysis.

If I could go to law school.

Yeah.

Where do I want to live for three years?

And you can't ask for a more beautiful spot than Missoula, Montana?

Yeah.

You're not kidding.

In the AG's office, you had previously been involved with public records and open government before you became the Transparency Council.

Talk a little bit about the years you've spent and what those years looked like leading up.

I would say to this position, the happy to, I want to I won't go back to the beginning of time, but, you know, it was with the AG's office, been there for 20 some odd years now, spent the first 15 of it doing labor and personnel work, which ends up you have employees, you get public records requests, ended up representing the state in a number of the cases that went to the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court having to do with, employee identity, employee requests for information.

And then in 2018, 2017, when the legislature passed the amendment to the to the period that said to the AG's office, you know, stand up, the public records consultation program jumped at the opportunity to, kind of do something a little bit different, a little more proactive.

And so for the past basically eight years, I've been working with local governments all over the state.

Everything from middling falls down to wacko, and corner to corner in the state dealing with, you know, new public records, officers helping train them on what to do with public records, request approaches to public records.

It was a great opportunity to do something a little more proactive, and do something that really, I think had a positive outcome, because, you know, what we found from doing it was, you know, first couple of years talking with new public records, officers discovered that a lot of times, people end up in this role and then don't know what to do, and that's where mistakes happen.

And so really started really proactively doing what we called period boot camps, training new public records, officers on approaches to public records, how to engage with folks, what they're supposed to be doing, those kinds of things.

Is there a structural conflict, though?

Here's the AG's office.

You, at the end of the day, represent cities and counties.

I mean, you can't do the cities kind of, but you represent the state.

But but is the goal are the goals aligned between the government and requesters?

And how do you view that kind of that fox guarding the henhouse criticism of training happening by the very entity that's supposed to be complying and frequently does it?

Well, I don't know about the frequently doesn't piece.

I mean, I was looking at the jailer report in terms of the number of requests, and it was showing me was still there's a lot of requests that are processed by the 200 biggest agencies of the go off, but guard really well in terms of, you know, my approach when I was leading our consultation program and, you know, yeah, I heard the comments, you know, this is this is a conflict of interest.

You can't be, you know, unfair and can't be, you know, impartial when it comes to this.

And, you know, I disagree with that.

I, you know, I made a point of the of the last eight years really talking with people about there is no secret playbook when it comes to the pra.

So not here's how to defend against it, here's how to fit into it and do it correctly.

Very much so.

Here's what the PRA says.

Here's what the case law has instructed has gone well with requests.

When, you know, court's ruling agencies favor when, you know, agencies have made mistakes.

Okay.

Where did that mistake come from?

Okay.

And, you know, and tell people, you know, it's let's learn from the mistakes of others so we don't we you know, we we create that problem.

And so it's really a proactive, you know, and, you know, the best lawsuits, the one that never happens.

Yeah.

And I fully believe in the press.

I think there's a, there's a huge need for transparency.

And so that was, you know, it's something that speaks to me.

There's a reason I've done this for eight years.

When I tell people, you know, people ask me, what do you do?

I work for the attorney general's office.

Okay, what do you do?

And I describe that, you know, when I was doing the consultation and I was chief transparency counsel, that I talk public records all the time, and the people look at me like, why?

Why would you why would you do that?

It's really because I think there is a value.

People should know what's going on, the ability to to see what's see the communications.

And so going back to your premise question, I, you know, I'm not sure that there's an inherent conflict, you know, Sg's office, we give advice to our client agencies, and they get to make their own decisions.

Not surprising.

You know, anytime you, you know, when you talk to the attorney, they give you options.

You know, they don't always take our advice.

And sometimes, you know, it doesn't play out necessarily the best.

And I ultimately follow to the position to what I rather the AG's office have a chief transparency officer or not.

Even if there is, you know, some might make that argument.

Well, there's a built in conflict there.

They're advocating for the man for the system.

I'd still rather have somebody in your role.

And, you know, I don't necessarily say that advocating for the system is, you know, I look at but I always come back to the pre I always come back to read the law.

What is the law required?

This morning I was reading, before I came up here.

I was reading the The Modern Rules proposals and trying to work on trying to keep that that moving forward and looking at some of the concerns that were shared.

So I'm always talking looking at so what's the baseline, what's in the PRA.

What do we what does it say we're supposed to be doing.

Keeping with that is kind of the guiding principle.

Talk a little bit about the model rules.

What are they.

How do they fit into the PRA and local governments and what and has any gold emerged from some of the hearings that you've had trying to update them because they're very old.

Yeah.

They, they, they needed some updating.

And so obviously we, we received a request, a petition from the media to take a look at that.

And they gave us some their proposals for that.

And you may be aware, we had a hearing in November, on the the proposed model rules that the AG's office published.

Their rule is they're the the model rules are really a guidance document.

They're commonly cited by the courts as to, you know, the way that public records request should be responded to, but they don't have the full weight of law.

But they are that that guiding principle, in our best interpretation of, you know, what should agencies be doing?

As their, as they're responding to requests.

One of the things I even before I started doing my prior job, I loved about the the model rules is not only are there a guidebook, and kind of a playbook for agencies and for requesters, they also tell you where it came from.

It's not just, you know, somebody sitting in a room someplace with a keyboard.

It goes back and cites to the PRA itself.

It looks to the case law that gave us the case law, which is so crucial because people there's lots of things we do that aren't necessarily written specifically into the PRA searching for one.

It's there are searching parameters came because court interpretation.

So helping people understand because sometimes when you read the law itself you're like, well, I don't see this.

Why are we doing it this way?

Here's the big one, the 800 pound gorilla in the room, as you well know.

Legislative privilege.

What is your take on the legislative privilege?

Have you thought about or would you ever consider doing an amicus brief, for that?

And if legislative privilege is upheld, it really seems like transparency counsel almost becomes kind of this Orwellian thing that would happen where we have privileges upheld and we've got the Transparency Council.

We're working alongside the legislature.

What's your take on that?

Help me unscramble that a little.

Well, I'm not sure I can.

You know, obviously we're talking about the legislature and the decisions they've made.

I know you're aware from talking with folks in the past that when that issue has come forward, our office declined representation on that, and they hired outside counsel to take that issue forward.

Summit.

Right.

I don't I don't recall who.

Yeah.

It was outside counsel.

That's an important point to mention.

The AG's office didn't step in.

Yeah, we didn't step in.

And I believe if I, if I was watching something a couple days ago, and I thought, former AG now governor, Ferguson made a comment about actually filing amicus in that case against the against some of that.

And so you know, it's one of those the, I understand the arguments.

But it's one that, you know, our offices has said we're not representing on this issue.

Yeah.

And it does, again, put you in a particularly difficult position.

Seeing the big picture which which I am sympathetic to is it does it at the same time, you know, that's the legislature and their records.

But, you know, if there's legislative privilege, it applies to the that group of records, and their work.

It doesn't change the pres application to every other state agency, all the local governments.

You know, in my role right now, I'm doing a lot of work internally.

Looking at the way we do business is the AG's office.

We are subject to the PRA.

So whatever happens in that case, is the same as is executive privilege.

That applies to the, you know, the governor's office, legislative is the legislative branch.

It's not going to impact us in the same way.

Yeah.

In some of your communications as you came into this office, have talked about several things that were priorities, and I was wondering if you could just touch on them a little bit.

You've talked about digitization.

You've talked about, ease of access.

You've talked about retention, and improving that in correspondence.

There are some upgrades and some modernization.

You want to do.

Do you have time for that?

First of all, is there budget for that?

And what are your goals?

That's you know, budget is always 800 pound gorilla.

I mean, in a perfect world, there be enough money to do everything.

You know, but I, you know, I this is not a new conversation, unfortunately, a conversation I've had with in the last few weeks looking at about our record systems, looking about what's there, how do we store things when we stand up?

New systems do we have are we thinking about this piece of the puzzle?

I've seen it play out with local governments.

I've seen it play out.

You know, in state agencies where the public records officers are not part of the conversation, and they really need to be part of the conversations about, great, we can do this.

And there's all kinds of amazing technology and a great way we can communicate with folks.

And that's that's wonderful.

But putting it right on the back end is the problem.

Organizing, collating, getting it where you can just push a button and maybe AI helps you in some way.

You can push a button and fulfill a request.

And guess what?

The people who want to sue you, they go away because boom, it's fulfilled.

Yeah, I mean, there's I think we are we are approaching a what I'm hoping is a watershed moment when it comes to this.

I don't think we're there yet with AI, just in terms of the technology and being able to say, is it going to be able to identify all the all the the sensitive information in a document?

We are super close.

We're seeing some really good work.

And advancements would be able to locate those documents.

I've talked with a couple of local governments that are looking at an AI tool that would have the ability to basically crawl into all of their systems rather than have to.

Not surprisingly, you know, agencies have multiple systems, they operate.

And so you have to search a and then you have to search the B, and then you have.

And so some tools are coming to be able to do okay.

This will be able to cross-pollinate and pull records out of all those.

You know I haven't seen the, the the ripple could be the outcome yet.

Super excited by what that can mean for us.

But that's all that's also going to mean back to the 800 pound gorilla, the money to invest in it.

You know, anytime you buy new technology, you know, it's that it with any business that first person to buy it is going to pay a pay a premium.

What can we afford?

Is there the budget, and trying to find that that sweet spot as to when's the right time to invest in this and what can we do in the meantime?

Yeah.

And, you know, it's kind of a little bit of a Jetsons discussion to some degree.

I mean, just this past week, one of the major large language models came out with news that they can parse and reverse engineer an ancient, programing language called COBOL, which was one of the boats that IBM had around it crashed IBM stock.

But the capabilities of it are amazing.

And like you suggest, if software or I can ever parse some of these old, old systems and link and somehow organize these records, a lot of the problems that I think have requesters, a little tied up right now in terms of the time fulfillment takes and incomplete fulfillment.

And oh, what about these records over here?

These actually relate to these records, but we never knew that or couldn't find them.

It could be revolutionary, though.

Very much so.

I'm looking forward to I would say once upon a time, I'd say the next ten years, I think the next five is far more realistic, if not shorter.

I mean, we're seeing such huge advances in it.

And I was talking with one of our folks the other day about, you know, one of the software tools we use, what they said it was capable of three years ago.

And they're really saying that it won't be able to do this next step for five years.

It's doing it now.

The, the it's just such an incremental or such a algorithmic kind of knowledge.

It's being built and the technology tools.

So I paint this picture of, like I said, this sort of Jetsons scenario, we can push this button to do a perfect fulfillment.

Between now and then, though, we have this problem with the time of fulfillment.

And, you know, there's, so many, stories about this.

But The Seattle Times recently, talked about a situation where they're waiting for 29 months, for a film, fulfillment from speed, which is a little notorious in this area.

And, just waiting requesters out, they say, seems to be a strategy, as the times puts it, quote giving, scandal plagued leaders the cover of time.

How can between now and I, in this dream scenario that you and I over you know what should be a couple of beers have have discussed, what can be done to resolve those kinds of problems between now and then?

Well, you know, it's it I've wrestled with that one.

And, and sometimes it's a question of what the request is.

You know, in talking with public records officers, which has been my primary audience for the last years, most public records officers are really, really a pragmatic group.

They're like, okay, what's the request?

What can I produce?

What can I eat?

And they're they're very much a customer.

And this is the model I've been advocating for for years, a customer service kind of model.

What can we know?

What can we produce?

The requesters.

And it's it's obviously lots of factors come into it.

You know, one of them is and I was looking at the volume of requests is is up.

Not surprising.

The volume of records we created as agencies is up.

And so this is a it's a and we're also seeing a change in requests from ten years ago.

It used to be I'd like a copy of this now we want any and all records related to in these dates.

Yeah.

And one of the things I talk about with and I was looking I can't remember the exact number, but the, I was talking with our public records officer yesterday about a request and about the number of records that were involved in it.

It was it was an astronomical number of records because somebody wanted records over a like a 13 year period.

And a lot of the agencies are saying, hey, we've got these vexatious requesters.

It's too much, it's too hard, which I sympathize with.

Is it being used as a crutch not to fulfill, you know, we've yeah, there's been a lot of conversations about vexatious requesters.

And I would say that they're not out there.

And, you know, every once in a while I hear that anecdotal story about somebody and, you know, oh, yeah, this is and you hear the back story, by and large, it's not been my experience.

Most requesters are and so I was looking at this morning was looking at Sensex.

So who are who is the average the typical requester whether it's the AG's office or statewide, it's individuals trying to get records.

And so I, you know, there are there are a few out there.

I, you know, I think that that is true, but I don't think it is as as huge as large of a problem as people are perceiving at times.

There are people who here are hugely passionate about issues, totally different.

And, you know, making multiple doesn't make you vexatious.

It makes you tenacious on an issue.

Okay.

That's I'm okay with that.

That's in, I know some vexatious requesters who'll be happy to hear that.

Yeah.

I mean, there I again goes back to I think there there are there is always the potential.

And I've heard a couple the old, you know, kind of horror stories about them.

Yeah.

But they're not by and large the it's not a huge number.

Yeah.

And, and I know there was some work last legislative session.

I don't think the bill passed about, you know, trying to how do you identify this?

And I think it's usually problematic because in that range, I want to talk to you about exemptions to the PRA.

That list now numbers, either it's either crossed or close to 700 exceptions, to the Public Records Act.

There's two ways to look at it though.

And I want to get your your view on the back end problem.

The front end problem is you look at this giant pile of exemptions and say, oh my gosh, look at all the things that I can't ask for that are exempted.

Fine.

That's not a good thing.

The other half of that is I'm a public records officer.

Somewhere in some jurisdiction.

I'm supposed to go through a checklist of 700 things to make sure that this isn't somehow exempted.

It almost seems like that makes fulfillment impossible.

How do we reduce the number of exemptions and get the interests aligned?

Or am I just in a pipe dream?

Well, you know, yeah, I I've seen this same I don't realize that we're approaching 700.

I knew we were 600 in terms of exemptions, from when that's a, you know, increase obviously in 1972 when the PRA passed.

But I also I always look at the other side as well, the data streams we had in 1972 were everybody, we had typewriters and file clerks and everything was paper versus we have what we can gather now is incredible.

And that's a good thing and whatnot.

But we also end up with records and information that is highly sensitive for various reasons.

And so the legislature has to kind of balance these issues.

And, and I in terms of the number of exemptions out there, you know, you asked a question about how the public records officers address this.

Fortunately for public records officers, they tend to be, they know what kind of records they have.

And so, you know, obviously, the the major producer of public records in the state is law enforcement.

So they can draw a box around their area a little bit.

Yeah, they know what they've got.

Law enforcement, police reports have the same general information in them.

But there's always that one off.

And that's where it takes some research.

That's why they have hopefully legal counsel.

That was part of what I did with my old role was, you know, be that resource I've got.

This record is concerning to me.

Is there an exemption for this information because this seems sensitive and sometimes like, yeah, these are the ones you should consider talking about.

You know, exemptions are discretionary for the most part.

Some are mandatory.

Having that conversation with folks.

And, and, you know, is that there is some inherent tension between exemptions and transparency.

And how do you how do you achieve that balance trying to protect people, information that really should be protected?

But also making sure people can see what why government is doing what it's doing.

Another big one I want to get to is the other deletions on Microsoft Teams.

That has been controversial for years.

The government, the governor's office, was going to come out with a report on this, and I think you were probably part of that, too.

What is the status of that report?

It appears to have been delayed substantially.

Are you guys still looking at this?

Is it still a problem?

Is there going to be a report and bring me up to speed?

That's an easy one.

I don't know, I mean, the they took on the role of chief chief transparency counsel really two months ago.

Okay.

And haven't been involved in that report.

Obviously.

I'm aware Governor Ferguson doing that.

In suspending the teams, auto delete.

But I don't know the status of that because I have not been involved in it.

Okay.

For folks, in our last a minute and a half here, what can people do who want to get involved in this or who care about this issue?

Is there something is this just for media and requesters and governments, or is this an issue that can get down to the people who may be watching this program?

How do they find out more?

Does your office, are you open to public questions and comments about this?

Talk a little bit about your public interface, if you would.

Happy to.

People always welcome to call me.

I had a conversation with a member of the public last night for about an hour.

Because they're there, the the record requests have been received by a local jurisdiction involving their child's records as a juvenile.

And so they had questions about why is this going on?

What can I expect?

You know, I'm concerned about these issues.

And so I like going back to what I said a while ago.

There is no secret playbook.

There shouldn't be when it comes to this.

I will tell a requester the same thing that I had talked with an agency about and say, this is what the exemption, this is how obviously we were talking about the 1350 in this in this conversation.

Here's how it's structured.

Here's what you can expect.

So I'm happy to talk with anybody.

I know.

My my contact information is on the AG's website.

Welcome.

People can call me, as is an email address.

Right now I'm a little short staffed, and so I'm doing my best to get back to people.

Obviously Washington Coalition for Open Government, great resource as well.

And the Municipal Research and Services Center, MRC, they work with a lot of local governments.

But they have a lot of great information on their website as well in terms of how to educate, you know, what they what to expect.

When it comes to the PRA, another great resource.

Good.

We've been also doing a lot of, you know, trying to do more.

We've done a few along the way where we've just done community conversations.

I did one in, Ocean Shores, one up in San Juan.

Okay.

The others were just, somebody sponsored us to basically set up a room for us, and we did a, here's the PRA 101, for requesters and for community members so that they know what to expect.

Great way to end up, because I think being, the chief transparency officer includes, public outreach and coming to northwest now, for that, we thank you so much more.

Thank you for inviting me, I appreciate it.

Everybody supports government transparency in principle.

The bottom line.

The real question is whether it's a principle you stick with when controversy strikes.

Reputations are on the line.

Muddy needs to be followed, or when waste or outright corruption need to be routed out.

And on that note, I wish Mr.

D'amaro the best of luck in his new role, representing not the agencies, but rather the will of the people.

And now we're going to shift gears.

If you haven't heard, I'm sorry to have to tell you that our freelance reporter, Steve Kiggins passed away three weeks ago, Steve was a familiar face here on northwest.

Now, having worked with us for the past three years, covering all kinds of stories, including reporting that was featured in two recent award winning Northwest Now specials.

Steve was an alumni here at Bates Technical College and was a native of Longview.

He survived by his father and stepmother and his six brothers and sisters and their families.

Steve worked in television news in Reno, Greensboro, and Atlanta.

And then finally back here in Seattle for more than a decade.

He was a talented multimedia journalist who shot and edited his own stories.

We're all going to miss Steve, and we wish his family and friends the best.

Steve Kiggins gone too soon.

At age 47.