Generally, HB 159 provides extreme clarity that when citizens (“requestors” in VFOIA parlance) seek to enforce the statute in court against officials who refuse to comply with legitimate records requests, they do NOT have to go through cumbersome and arcane litigation-type service of process requirements. This was never intended in the legacy statute’s wording, but somehow the rotten got in with the good.
When more costs are wrongfully imposed on the community by way of a false and corrupt imposition of a "service of process" requirement (through manipulation of judicial 'bench books'), you can achieve delay well beyond the statutory shot clock and, frankly, defeat a citizen’s enforcement effort in the womb. When the law firms monopolizing the VFOIA transparency and accountability market vertical advise their institutional government clients, as they clearly are, to be contumacious with respect to complying with the law -- and I am putting that very benignly -- then shot clock urgency disappears in the usual costly chasing of scofflaw officials who magically escape service for days or even weeks. This may benefit law firms' scheduling preferences -- the obvious goal -- but never rank and file citizens.
By injecting service of process slop into the enforcement context, the firms put the litigation on advantageous terms for defendants and themselves at the expense of the citizenry. Imagine your surprise in court after doing everything imaginable to get legitimately requested records and duly notifying the officials of the need to come to court when the lawyers show up with their empty bankers boxes: "Our client was never ‘served’ with process; despite whatever the ‘statute’ says – the benchbook makes clear that service is needed; in any event, now that we’re here, perhaps this can be scheduled for hearing a few months from now pending, of course, proper service of process by the plaintiffs…” Yuck – the precise destruction of the baked-in urgency the VFOIA's language was deliberately crafted to reflect.
That happened to us in our County in 2023-24 and our community never received Justice despite Herculean efforts.
All this mess that true VFOIA compliance would have avoided, or at least substantially mitigated, was paid for by taxpayers. It's our money paying for our frustration, for our despair, and our diminishing trust in the integrity of our institutions and governance. It puts us at our wits’ ends when we KNOW that government doesn’t work and that we’re paying handsomely for that failure.
The VFOIA is ours -- not the law firms' and the scofflaws. It is a DIY that aids in the transparency and accountability portions of our system of self-government by ensuring that public officials produce factual records associated with their performance of duty. VFOIA is the kind of “lance” that MLK, Jr. talked about in Letter from a Birmingham Jail, that, once applied, exposes injustice to the “medicines of air and light.”
Our community didn't get the benefits VFOIA was crafted to provide. But, with a serious effort behind HB 159, future members of our Commonwealth communities should.
Future families and stakeholders need a VFOIA they can enforce.
Coach Theo Marcus
Citizen of the Commonwealth
Generally, HB 159 provides extreme clarity that when citizens (“requestors” in VFOIA parlance) seek to enforce the statute in court against officials who refuse to comply with legitimate records requests, they do NOT have to go through cumbersome and arcane litigation-type service of process requirements. This was never intended in the legacy statute’s wording, but somehow the rotten got in with the good. When more costs are wrongfully imposed on the community by way of a false and corrupt imposition of a "service of process" requirement (through manipulation of judicial 'bench books'), you can achieve delay well beyond the statutory shot clock and, frankly, defeat a citizen’s enforcement effort in the womb. When the law firms monopolizing the VFOIA transparency and accountability market vertical advise their institutional government clients, as they clearly are, to be contumacious with respect to complying with the law -- and I am putting that very benignly -- then shot clock urgency disappears in the usual costly chasing of scofflaw officials who magically escape service for days or even weeks. This may benefit law firms' scheduling preferences -- the obvious goal -- but never rank and file citizens. By injecting service of process slop into the enforcement context, the firms put the litigation on advantageous terms for defendants and themselves at the expense of the citizenry. Imagine your surprise in court after doing everything imaginable to get legitimately requested records and duly notifying the officials of the need to come to court when the lawyers show up with their empty bankers boxes: "Our client was never ‘served’ with process; despite whatever the ‘statute’ says – the benchbook makes clear that service is needed; in any event, now that we’re here, perhaps this can be scheduled for hearing a few months from now pending, of course, proper service of process by the plaintiffs…” Yuck – the precise destruction of the baked-in urgency the VFOIA's language was deliberately crafted to reflect. That happened to us in our County in 2023-24 and our community never received Justice despite Herculean efforts. All this mess that true VFOIA compliance would have avoided, or at least substantially mitigated, was paid for by taxpayers. It's our money paying for our frustration, for our despair, and our diminishing trust in the integrity of our institutions and governance. It puts us at our wits’ ends when we KNOW that government doesn’t work and that we’re paying handsomely for that failure. The VFOIA is ours -- not the law firms' and the scofflaws. It is a DIY that aids in the transparency and accountability portions of our system of self-government by ensuring that public officials produce factual records associated with their performance of duty. VFOIA is the kind of “lance” that MLK, Jr. talked about in Letter from a Birmingham Jail, that, once applied, exposes injustice to the “medicines of air and light.” Our community didn't get the benefits VFOIA was crafted to provide. But, with a serious effort behind HB 159, future members of our Commonwealth communities should. Future families and stakeholders need a VFOIA they can enforce. Coach Theo Marcus Citizen of the Commonwealth