A small but important step for freedom

I've made a lot of noise, and rightly so, about the Police Department's leadership's dogged refusal to give me one simple piece of public information: The day on which Sgt. Bradley Lawrence, an officer accused of serious misconduct, began earning a taxpayer-funded paycheck.

I first asked about two weeks ago, and was rebuffed. Again and again I was told no by Lt. Scott Paterson, who was ostensibly speaking on behalf of the Chief of Police.

Then I got a call this week saying definitively that after counseling with the City Attorney's office, I could not have the information.

Naturally, I fired back, writing a number of blogs bemoaning this grave precedent of maintaining government secrecy.

And then they cracked.

City Attorney James F. Penman called and said there was a misunderstanding between his office and the police over what exactly I wanted. He said I could have the information.

Lawrence was hired in December 1984.

That info alone is not crucial. But the access the press has to this info is vitally important. If government can decide when and if it will divulge when taxpayer funded employees started drawing checks, the public's right to know is seriously eroded.

We wrote a major story on Lawrence last weekend. It relied heavily on anonymous sources, precisely because this kind of clampdown on the truth has occurred.

Remember, we even estimated Lawrence's start date in that story based on anonymous sources (we were right on that detail, just like every other word in the story. It was tight as a drum).

Of course, the fact that local government workers (themselves servants to us, the public) finally capitulated to our demands for open information doesn't let them off the hook.

The fact that it took two weeks to get this little tidbit is totally unacceptable. If we were pinning a medal on Lawrence for heroism, I would have been told his hire date without hesitation.

But since the news is grim, not good, the department selectively clammed up.

Information is either free or it isn't. You can't shut down the flow when the scrutiny is getting hot.

Let that be a lesson to public servants everywhere.