For Marilyn Halsey, her attempts to understand family history were stonewalled.
The Lewiston, Idaho resident and her husband traveled 800 miles to Green River to trace the history of his grandfather, a Hungarian immigrant who worked in the Gun coal camp outside of Rock Springs. Records she found painted the picture of a very proud American citizen who helped with local elections. Research conducted at the Sweetwater County Courthouse revealed the county paid him $6 for his work in a local election in 1915, shortly after he became naturalized. However, when Halsey discovered her husband’s grandmother was previously married in 1915, she was told to get a court order to view the record.
“She (the clerk) wasn’t rude, but told me I needed to get a court order to see the license,” Halsey said.
Marriage records have been the subject of some confusion throughout Wyoming since a letter issued by the state department of vital statistics ordered marriage, death and divorce records to be sealed for 50 years after their issue date. The letter, dated Feb. 25 and written by the Wyoming Department of Health’s deputy registrar Jim McBride, states Wyoming statutes cannot release personally identifiable information contained within marriage licenses without review and consent of the state registrar. Also, while the counties cannot issue certified copies of the licenses and certificates, they can give one copy of the completed marriage licenses to the people initially married. In Halsey’s case, contacting her husband’s grandparents to obtain copies of the documents isn’t possible.
According to Sweetwater County Clerk Dale Davis said the document itself should have been made available because of the document’s age, saying he planned to remind his employees of what documents should be available for public inspection. However, he does admit the department of vital statistic’s letter has caused some confusion amongst county clerks. Jim Angell, director of the Wyoming Press Association, said he’s received calls from across the state regarding questions about access to marriage records, saying the problem started at the beginning of the year. Angell said while certified copies from the state cannot be released for 50 years, that should not include records maintained by individual counties as they’re two different sets of information. However, marriage documents aren’t the only pieces of government information people can be unduly denied access to.
Public records audit
Green River Star employees not identifying themselves with the newspaper conducted an audit of records legally available to people under the state’s public records law. In six of the seven requests employees made, they were granted access. In Rock Springs, when Staff Writer Lillian Palmer asked to see the proposed budget the for city upcoming fiscal year, Palmer said the employee at City Hall was more than happy to help.
“He was pretty excited that someone was asking for it,” Palmer said.
Similar requests Palmer made to see the Rock Springs Police Department’s activity log and Sweetwater County School District No. 1’s teacher pay scales were also granted.
In Green River, not everything was released as it should have been. Olivia Kennah, the newspaper’s summer intern, was granted access to view Sweetwater County School District No.2’s teacher pay, meeting minutes to the Sweetwater County Commissioners’ June 2 meeting and Green River Circuit Court documents.
However, when Kennah approached the Green River Police Department to request an officer’s report involving an arrest, she was denied. Kennah said the office worker helping her ask if she was the person arrested or related to the person arrested and denyed her access to the officer’s report. Kennah said they did show her the GRPD press release noting the arrest took place, but not the report regarding the arrest.
Angell said the officer’s report should have been available to view, citing a 1985 Wyoming Supreme Court case between The Sheridan Press and the City of Sheridan where the court ruled officer’s reports are public documents.
The public documents law does state that a $750 fine could be assessed to an agency not following the law, however Angell admits the fine, if assessed in issues regarding municipalities, results in the local government fining itself.
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