BY STEVEN ANDREWS

Bedford officials said tactics used by reporters to obtain public documents, and not ignorance of the Right to Know Law, led to their failure in last week’s investigation by Neighborhood News.

While School Board and Town Council minutes were easy to obtain, a reporter was not able to get school and town employee salary lists or a list of the previous week’s arrests.

But Town Manager Russ Marcoux said the way the information was requested was flawed, not the town’s response.

“I take exception to (the story) because we are so accommodating,” he said. “We ask questions so we know we get you the right information.”

Neighborhood News investigated accessibility to public documents by having staffers ask for town and school minutes and salaries as well as the list of arrests and police calls in the previous week.

Newsroom staff canvassed town offices, police departments and school administrators in the 16 towns within its coverage area, and did not identify themselves as reporters in order to see how the general public would be treated when making such requests.

Most towns did well at releasing minutes of town and school meetings. Ask for salaries or arrests, however, and public servants are protective of this information, some to the point of refusing to release it at all.

The law states that towns must provide the information without asking for any identification, though they do have five days to either comply or defend their reason for withholding it.

When asked for salary information, the town asked for a written request to be given to the finance director so that the information could be gathered.

Marcoux said the specifics of the request were not relayed to the finance director and that led to the confusion.

However, he stressed that residents would not have a problem obtaining information if they came in with specific requests.

“Our employees that deal with the law understand it,” he said.

Bedford Police Chief David Bailey said it was a matter of time and technology that prevented his department from handing over the arrest records when requested.

“It’s a lot of work (to compile the data for public viewing),” he said. “We do not have a computer program that specifically does that.”

A reporter who had asked for the previous week’s arrests was told to go to the courts to view them, and that arrests and calls were available, but not for public viewing.

Bailey also cited privacy concerns with giving out the records, saying they must first be printed out and edited by an official, removing personal data and juvenile records.

“I am a strong proponent of the Right to Know Law, but sometimes it’s used in the opposite direction (of its intent),” he said.

He said it was more logistics than anything else that prevented the reporter from obtaining the records and that residents would be able to get information if making a specific request about an arrest.

Superintendent Timothy Mayes said when the secretary told the reporter she did not have the salary information, she meant she would have to get in touch with someone else to provide it.

“Electronically we have it all. She’d have to get it from human resources and we could supply it later in the afternoon or the next day,” Mayes said.

While she did not direct the reporter to anyone else in the office, Mayes said the director of human resources was not at the office on the day the reporter visited.

“We’ve been pretty responsive to the public in Bedford,” Mayes said, adding that all employees in the office are aware of the rules of the Right to Know Law.