NOTE: This column, by one of VCOG's founding board members, John Edwards, was originally published by The Smithfield Times. Edwards, the former editor of the Times, still writes a column for the paper, called In the Short Rows. Edwards was instrumental in setting up the FOIA Council and served on the council for his first several years.

It may be the height of irony during Sunshine Week -- the access and transparency community's annual love letter to open records and open meetings laws across our country -- to hear me say the rules of open government might not apply right now.

I've never been one to shy away from the soapbox, to point out inaccuracies, call out bad policy, question practices, or challenge interpretations. It would be fair (though not entirely accurate) to call me an absolutist: all access, all the time!

We are at a tipping point now because more and more requesters are seeing larger and larger bills. Without an understanding of the complexity of an email search, these charges appear not only arbitrary, but also punitive, a tool for discouraging requests.

OK, this story makes me tetchy.

At a Pulaski County Board of Supervisors meeting, a supervisor and the county administrator engaged in an exchange over a projected slide showing the number of FOIA requests filed each year for the past nine years.  The total was 361, which equals 35.4/year, which equals fewer than 3/month. (A story from The Southwest Times is reprinted below.)