In July 2013, the office of Gov. Pat McCrory announced the sudden resignation of his public safety secretary after only six months on the job.
The statement said Kieran Shanahan was leaving to spend more time with his wife and focus on his law firm, but persistent whispers around the state capital suggested there was more to the story.
In response, The Associated Press filed a public records request that September for emails Shanahan sent or received while secretary.
Nearly 19 months later, AP is still waiting.
So far, the N.C. Department of Public Safety has managed to produce about 500 of Shanahan's emails, including the automated updates from his spam filter. But about 2,600 emails remain, waiting to be cleared for release.
"We simply do not have enough staff to dedicate one person, or more, to get all the requests we have along with our many other duties," said Pamela Walker, the agency's communications director, said Thursday. "That includes working in emergency operations to push out information to the public during a disaster such as snow storms, tornados, hurricanes ... and so much more. Not whining, just reality."
At the current rate, the department's staff of nine full-time public information officers would release the last of Shanahan's emails sometime around the year 2020.
Under North Carolina law, government documents "are the property of the people" and should be provided "as promptly as possible" at "free or at minimal cost." Access to such records is essential to journalists and other members of the public seeking information the actions of government officials and how they are spending taxpayer money.
As a gubernatorial candidate, McCrory, a Republican, pledged he would make state government transparent and accountable. Since taking office, however, McCrory's administration has relied on a new and unprecedented interpretation of North Carolina's public records law to assess a "special service charge" on records requests they consider too burdensome.
For the Shanahan request, AP received an initial invoice in late 2013 for $74 — the purported cost for the two hours it took to have an IT technician to retrieve the secretary's emails from a computer server.
The department said staff would then need to review each email to ensure it didn't contain confidential material, such as personnel records. Under its current fee schedule, the agency may charge for the hourly wages and benefits of employees working on records requests taking more than 4 hours to process.
Lawyers representing the state's largest newspapers and broadcasters have advised their clients that such demands for reimbursement for state employee time are "unjustified, improper and in violation of the law."
Under protest, AP agreed to pay the $74 — but only after the remaining emails are provided. On similar public records requests to another state agency, AP has received estimates in the hundreds of dollars.
Journalists in newsrooms across the state say even simple and routine requests for public records from the McCrory administration are often met with delays of weeks or months.
"When you're trying to put together stories, there's no doubt there's an impact on your ability to do that when records requests are sitting there, sitting there, and you never get anything," said Rick Gall, the news director at WRAL-TV in Raleigh. "It seems like it's going to take forever, and in some cases it practically does. There are times we have submitted requests and waited so long for them to be filled, that the interest in that story, and most importantly the impact of that story, is gone."
A coalition of 10 media companies that included the AP sued Gov. Mike Easley, a Democrat, in 2008 over his administration's mass deletion of emails. That lawsuit was settled in 2009 through an executive order issued by his Democratic successor, Gov. Beverly Perdue, that required all state employee emails to be archived for at least 10 years.
To adhere to the settlement, the state spent more than $1 million on software that automatically archives emails sent or received over state computer servers. At the time, officials said the system allows state employees to easily search and copy archived emails without assistance from information technology staff.
After taking office in 2013, McCrory issued his own order reiterating that government emails are public records, though he cut the required retention period to 5 years. McCrory Communications Director Josh Ellis declined to comment about the administration's handling of public records requests.
Rick Thames, executive editor of the Charlotte Observer, said too many state staffers have begun to treat processing records requests as a hassle, rather than a core part of job duties.
"(They) have actually pointed to individual citizens and said, 'We don't have time for all these people lining up for public records,'" Thames said. "And I'm thinking: 'Well that's exactly what the point of the law is — the records should be accessible for anyone.'"
David Cuillier, chair of the Society of Professional Journalists Freedom of Information Committee, said North Carolina appears to be following a national trend in increasing roadblocks to accessing public records, particularly by implementing new fees.
That has a chilling effect on those seeking information about their government, he said.
"It's frankly un-American," said Cuillier, director of the University of Arizona School of Journalism. "There are political leaders who are thin-skinned and afraid of any negative publicity ... The right way to govern is to be transparent, accountable, open and have a little bit of backbone. That's really the best way to build public trust, and respect."
