DaytonDailyNews.com

COLUMBUS — In early July, University of Akron graduate student Jennifer Thrasher asked for six months of e-mail records to and from key staff in the offices of the governor, attorney general, secretary of state and treasurer.

While Thrasher quickly got the data from Treasurer Richard Cordray, she didn't get the same results from the other office holders.

Gov. Ted Strickland's deputy legal counsel, Jeff Ruppert, sent a four-page letter to Thrasher last week, saying it would take two years to review a portion of the e-mails she requested and that she may have to pay as much as $50,000 in printing costs.

Thrasher asked for the material on a disk, but Ruppert wrote: "All records must be printed in paper form before they can undergo legal review."

Like most states, Ohio has sunshine laws to make sure citizens, as well as the media, can keep tabs on the job state and local officials are doing. Yet access to even routine information is increasingly hard to come by.

Ohio's Shrinking Public Record, a 2003 study by the Ohio Newspaper Association, found that over the past decade the Ohio General Assembly has exempted more and more records from disclosure. And a 2004 audit of local governments conducted by newspapers across the state found that routine records sought were provided the same or next day in only 52.7 percent of the cases.

Kent State University journalism professor Tim Smith said larger requests are often met with foot-dragging because public officials "don't want to be bothered."

"If you want to provide a legalistic smoke screen you can and that's what the governor's office has done, unfortunately," he said.

Strickland said his office is swamped with requests for broad swaths of records. "I'm trying to be compliant with the law, but I'll tell you I'm not going to take all of my staff and say the only thing we'll do is carry records to someone," he said.

Thrasher has not disclosed why she wants the e-mails — under Ohio's Sunshine Laws she isn't required to do so. Her requests went to offices held by Democrats and she did not submit one to Auditor Mary Taylor, a Republican.

Thrasher is still waiting on a formal response from Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, while Attorney General Marc Dann sent a package this week.

"I'm just a regular citizen," she wrote in an e-mail to the Dayton Daily News. "I have the right to know what the government is doing with my tax dollars. The public records law is one of the best ways that ordinary citizens like me can see how our tax dollars are being spent."

Contact this reporter at (614) 224-1624

or lbischoff@DaytonDailyNews.com.