Public information

As a newspaper, it is our responsibility to report the happenings around town. While that includes information from the latest meetings, upcoming events and results from local sporting events, it also means shining a light the other direction.

When it comes to legal matters such as calls to the police department or sheriff’s office, happenings in the circuit and district courts, marriage licenses and divorces, the paperwork associated with these events is a matter of public record. Here at the Thermopolis Independent Record, we choose to publish this information, again to keep our readers informed of the local happenings.

Of course, there are times when a court case is not picked up right away, or a divorce or marriage license is not recorded for one reason or another, but we try to address these instances in a timely fashion.

As with any incident that results in legal action of some kind, it’s understandable that people would not want details released in such a public way. However, they are part of the public record. Even if one of our staff who was caught up in some legal action such as a court case, divorce or marriage license, we would still print the information.

Requests are made from time to time not to have certain items printed, simply because people don’t want them printed.

If we honored each of these requests — turning into something of a pick-and-choose method — we would quickly find we would not be able to print any such information, as anyone could simply say “I don’t want it printed,” and we’d have to honor that.

Rather, there has to be a concrete legal precedence to keep public record information out. And even if it were kept out of the paper, public record is still the people’s record.

Under the Wyoming Sunshine Law, found in Article 2 of Chapter 4 of Title 16 in the Wyoming Statutes, any person is granted the right to access governmental records, and the purpose of such requests does not affect an individual’s right to obtain records.

As a newspaper, it is our job to help keep the community informed, and that also means publishing information — though some might ask us not to — already open and available to the public.