(The Center Square) – Serious allegations concerning the destruction of public records within the Office of Minority and Women’s Business Enterprises, or OMWBE, are coming out in the latest The Public Records Officer Podcast from open government advocate Jamie Nixon.
Nixon told The Center Square an anonymous source reached out to him, providing emails, letters, text messages and other documentation from Julie Bracken, the public records officer at OMWBE.
“First thing they gave me was the [Aug. 7] 2024 letter that Julie Bracken had sent to the AG begging for help,” Nixon explained. “Now that letter was sent almost a year and a half after all of this started.”
The letter Nixon referred to was also shared with The Center Square. In it, Bracken was pleading with the office of then-Attorney General Bob Ferguson for help in dealing with supervisors and managers within OMWBE who, Bracken alleged, were hindering her ability to provide public records upon request.
“I write to you today to ask for some much-needed help in getting my agency’s ‘Leadership Team’ on board with the Public Records Act. There have been many misappropriations of records by leadership and interference with public records requests that are putting our agency at risk. These people delete records and withhold them specifically for public records requests, and by me saying something to them, they have disciplined me and given me expectations that are outrageous and do not align with the statute,” Bracken wrote.
That letter included Bracken detailing concerns that went back to a December 2022 public records request for “current pay, start dates and any pay increases planned to include all justifications for all Lekha Fernandes' current and planned direct reports… and changes to agency reporting structure,” according to documents provided to TCS.
Fernandes is the acting director at OMWBE and was appointed by then-Gov. Jay Inslee in 2022.
According to Bracken, OMWBE’s then-Director of Workforce Development, Ashley Olson, was behind the destruction of public records that were requested, and Bracken alleges another employee was also directed by Olson to destroy records and complied.
“What should I do if somebody tells me to delete a Teams post, and it is because of a public records request?” asked the OMWBE employee of Bracken.
“The person seemed very hesitant but felt they had to take part in this because a manager had asked them to do it,” said Nixon.
“She has taken public records requests personally and is making the other leadership think that I don’t know what I am doing and setting me up for failure,” Bracken wrote in her letter to the Attorney General’s Office. “I have been telling my supervisor that she has been bullying me for over 2 years now and now I am in trouble and have done nothing wrong and nothing to deserve this kind of treatment. I am truly heartbroken that the leadership here at OMWBE does not take transparency seriously. We owe it to ourselves, our staff, and the people we serve to uphold laws and stay transparent.”
“This is the first time I'm able to show, at least through this public records officer's notes … we're looking at an allegation of felony records destruction,” Nixon said. “The worst thing that you could do in the eyes of the court when it comes to public records is to destroy a record after a request comes in, especially with the motivation being that you don't want to disclose those records in that request.”
Bracken kept copious notes from the time the first request for records was received, including details of meetings she was pulled into with Olson and her direct supervisor to discuss which records they would provide to the requester. She also kept all the communications with the employee who was asked to destroy records.
“They told me they were asked by Ashley Olson to delete records for this prr [public records request]. They did and Ashley Olson also did. [They] described a sense of intimidation and felt as if they had to comply with the request that is coming from a person in a position of power,” wrote Bracken in notes shared with TCS by Nixon.
Nixon said Bracken is to be applauded for taking her job very seriously, to the point that she stood up to managers who allegedly refused to let her do her job.
“We should be so lucky to have PROs [public records officers] like her at every place where they have to have a PRO. She's a public servant in the highest order, and I'm certainly grateful that she was able to keep her professionalism and her service to the people as a top priority when dealing with the stuff that she was dealing with,” he said.
Nixon also shared screenshots of Teams chat messages between Bracken and Olson, in which Olson allegedly insisted that public records requests should be submitted to her before the records were provided.
“I am by no means a public records expert but do have responsibility from a Director of Workforce Development role to approve the release of HR information, so the only gap that we need to close from my perspective is simply communication,” wrote Olson in a chat message to Bracken.
Olson’s LinkedIn page indicates that she is no longer with OMWBE and has recently been hired as the policy and rules manager for the Washington State Department of Enterprise Services.
The Center Square reached out to DES with a request to speak with Olson, but did not receive a response. An email was also sent to Fernandes requesting comment. Again, The Center Square did not get a response.
Messages left with Bracken at the public records request office at OMWBE seeking comment went unreturned.
The Center Square also sent an email to the office of Attorney General Nick Brown, inquiring if Bracken’s 2024 letter requesting help resulted in any action from the office.
A response from AGO Communications Specialist Ashley Gross stated, “I can confirm that the AGO did receive the email from Ms. Bracken. Our PRA Consultation office, which works with local governments on public records compliance, passed it to our attorneys who work with the OMWBE. Any discussions they had with OMWBE are subject to attorney-client privilege."
Nixon says this appears to be an “obvious felony violation” of the public records act, but he’s also been unable to confirm if there was or will be an investigation.
“At the very least, it would be nice to hear that there was an investigation here and that there's some reason why charges weren't brought,” he said. “Because if the law is never ever going to be enforced, then you're incentivizing people to destroy records. You just are… Sure, the law may say that there's a felony if you do this, but if it's never ever going to be enforced, then it's not really a law."
Nixon concluded: ‘When a frontline records officer raises alarms this serious, the system owes her more than silence. We need clear, consistent accountability so public servants who follow the law are supported, not punished, and so Washingtonians can trust that their government isn't hiding from them.”
