State and local governments face a challenge in balancing public access to information against protecting the privacy of their employees. In attempting to strike that balance, there is a strong argument to be made for erring on the side of privacy for employees in terms of what documents pertaining to their employment should be available to the public, but there is an equally compelling interest in public awareness of how public resources are used and how public officials interact with those they aim to serve. A bill pending in the Colorado Legislature tips the scales too far away from the latter.
House Bill 1062, sponsored by Rep. Mark Barker, R-Colorado Springs, a measure concerning minimum employment protections for Colorado peace officers, has many provisions that offer perfectly acceptable protections for police personnel. Included among these are guarantees that peace officers can review any material before it is added to their personnel file, that they can engage in political activity when off-duty, participate in unions, enjoy a presumption of innocence when accused of a violation of law or agency policy, and be guaranteed a thorough and fair process by which such accusations are investigated, heard, and appealed. There is nothing to argue in any of those protections, save, perhaps for the fact that they are somewhat duplicative of standard personnel protections.
At issue is one provision related to the misconduct review process, namely that, Any document generated or presented in connection with the hearing shall be treated as a personnel record and is subject to the legal protections afforded to personnel records. There is a compelling public interest in knowing what evidence exists in charges of police misconduct, or even that such complaints have been levied in the first place. When there is a relationship contingent on trust but that trades on power such as that between police and citizens, ensuring that there is transparency in the misconduct review process is one way of reinforcing trust while keeping power in balance. By closing the misconduct review process from the public, there is very little light that could be shed on proceedings that are potentially of significant interest to the publics safety and to police accountability.
Because HB 1062s troubling provision is so vague, though, the measure could be read too broadly so as to place a procedural cone of silence over conduct review processes that ought to be shared with the public. As Colorado Press Association attorney Steve Zansberg pointed out when citing a recent case involving police brutality charges against Denver Police officers, the measure would have limited or even erased public knowledge of problem behavior in the police force. We wouldnt have known what came out in their (disciplinary) hearing, Zansberg said. It would have all been closed, and all the records used in that hearing would be closed. That is an unacceptable overreach in the name of personnel privacy.
The House Committee on Local Government heard HB 1062 on Monday and postponed the measure after rejected proposed amendments. That was the right move; the committee should be in no hurry to take action on the bill and should take none unless the sweeping provision keeping documents related to misconduct charges is stricken from the bill.
