INTRODUCTION

Thank you for joining the WAPRO 2022 Fall Conference. We are excited to be back in-person for our conference! Below you will find some helpful information: 

• Doors to the Tacoma Convention Center will open at 7:30am for badge pick-up and coffee, water, yogurt and pastries 
• Parking rates and information for the Tacoma Convention Center can be found here 
• Lunch is provided 

 All conference materials will be found online. There will be a program book provided with a notes section, however, all programs will be on the Meeting Hub.  If you would like physical copies while on-site, please download and print in advance. 

If you are interested in getting either CLE or CMC/MMC credits, please visit our CE desk near registration to sign up for those.  

AGENDA & MATERIALS

CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS

The WAPRO fall conference scheduled for October 27, 2022, has been approved for 1 CMC education or 1MMC advanced education point per 4 hours as follows:  

8:45 am – 9:45 am Litigating PRA and Other Cases for Public Entities CMC ONLY – 1hr. 

9:45 am – 11:30 am Case Law/Legal Update – 1.75hrs. 

 1 pm – 2 pm (Concurrent session #1) – 1hr. 

• Records Practical Skills – Redactions 
• Basics of Managing Financial Records – CMC ONLY 
• Body Worn Camera and the PRA CMC ONLY 

2:15 pm – 3:15 pm (Concurrent session #2) – 1hr. 

• Eating Elephants, processing Large Requests 
• Electronic Records Management Start to Finish 
• Preparing for PRA Litigation CMC ONLY  

Total CMC hours = 4.75

Total CMC points = 1.19 CMC education points with a completed learning assessment 

Total MMC hours = 3.75 

Total MMC points = 0.94 MMC advanced education points with a completed learning assessment 

SPEAKERS

Litigating PRA & Other Cases for Public Entities: Observations from 35 years of Experience 

Paul Lawrence 

Paul Lawrence is the senior litigation partner at Pacifica Law Group. Paul concentrates his practice on complex appellate and civil litigation, including commercial, municipal, constitutional, environmental, and insurance coverage cases in federal and state courts. 

Paul’s appellate experience includes over 75 appeals principally in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Supreme Courts of Washington and Montana, and the various Courts of Appeal in Washington. He has also practiced in the United States Supreme Court, the Second, Third, Seventh, Eleventh, D.C., and Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal, and the California and New York appellate courts. 

Case Law/Legal Update 

Morgan Damerow 

Morgan Damerow serves as the Attorney General’s Office Local Government Public Records Act Consultant. In this position, Morgan provides guidance to local governments on responding to public records requests, identifying resources to develop or update technology related to public records and helping agencies respond to requests properly and efficiently. He joined the AGO in 2003 and has represented the state in numerous PRA cases as well as labor and employment matters. In 2018 he took on the creation of the AGO’s Local Government PRA Consultation Program. Morgan frequently provides training to local governments and speaks to conference participants on the Public Records Act. He is a 1997 graduate from the University of Montana, School of Law. 

Ramsey Ramerman 

Ramsey Ramerman is a deputy city attorney with the City of Everett, where he works on open government and First Amendment issues, advises the police department on records laws and works on general municipal law questions and disputes.  Ramsey also advises and defends other municipalities in PRA and First Amendment litigation through his firm Ramerman Law Office PLLC.   

He is one of the founders and the first President of the Washington Association of Public Records Officers and served eight years on the state Sunshine Committee.  In addition, he is the co-editor-in-chief of the Second Edition of the WSBA PRA Deskbook and co-authored two chapters in the deskbook.   

Prior to working for the City of Everett, Ramsey worked at Foster Pepper PLLC.  Ramsey graduated with high honors from the University of Washington School of Law in 2000.   

Jennifer Steele 

Jennifer Steele is Public Records Counsel for the Attorney General’s Office. As Public Records Counsel, Jennifer provides expertise to AAGs regarding client advice and litigation strategy. She advises and serves as a resource to the AGO on public records issues, provides trainings, and represents the AGO in PRA litigation involving the AGO. Jennifer has served in the AGO for over 14 years, during which she has consistently worked in the public records arena. Jennifer previously worked in the Consumer Protection and Licensing and Administrative Law divisions. Prior to joining the AGO Jennifer was a clerk at the Washington State Supreme Court. Jennifer attended Syracuse University where she was on the Women’s Varsity Rowing Team. She received her J.D. from Seattle University where, upon learning there was no rowing team, she became an editor for the Seattle Journal for Social Justice.

Records Practical Skills – Redactions 

Mark Brockman 

Mark Brockman’s formal education is in Environmental Biology.  

Mark came to Records Management via the EPA region 10 Superfund Records Center. He worked with the EPA for fourteen years, and in addition to managing Superfund site records, preparing Administrative Records, and responding to FOIA requests for some of the largest cleanup projects in the Pacific Northwest, he was on the design workgroup for EPA’s in-house Records Management software system. 

He has also worked in database design and programming, as well as Medical Records Management at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. 

Mark made a move to managing public disclosure requests with Kitsap County seven years ago.  He has worked as a Records Manager, Coordinator, Public Records Specialist, and all-around records gadfly for Kitsap County. 

Body Worn Camera and the PRA 

Tara Collings 

Tara Collings began working for the Seattle Police Department Legal Unit in 2016, where she currently holds the position of Senior Public Disclosure Advisor.  Tara has been with the Department since the inception of the Body-Worn Video Program, and over the past five years, she has processed Body-Worn Videos for Criminal & Civil Discovery and Litigation, and Public Disclosure Requests. 

Morgan Damerow 

Morgan Damerow serves as the Attorney General’s Office Local Government Public Records Act Consultant. In this position, Morgan provides guidance to local governments on responding to public records requests, identifying resources to develop or update technology related to public records and helping agencies respond to requests properly and efficiently. He joined the AGO in 2003 and has represented the state in numerous PRA cases as well as labor and employment matters. In 2018 he took on the creation of the AGO’s Local Government PRA Consultation Program. Morgan frequently provides training to local governments and speaks to conference participants on the Public Records Act. He is a 1997 graduate from the University of Montana, School of Law. 

Basics of Managing Financial Records 

Rosie Bigelow 

Rosie has been working in archives and records management since 2013, and subsequently received her Masters in Archival Studies in 2017 from Clayton State University. She served as Records Officer for Washington Technology Solutions, and is currently the Records Officer for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Rosie also worked doing public records requests for 3 and a half years.  

Rosie strives to empower those in her audience by giving them a starting place, and to come to their agency’s table with the practical knowledge and the empathy necessary to be successful in a records management position. Records management can be scary to those who don’t do it regularly, and Rosie specializes in making records management accessible to everyone. 

Sean Reichard 

Sean Reichard joined the Washington State Archives in November 2021. Hailing from the Upper Midwest, he previously worked with the Wisconsin Historical Society in their offsite preservation facility and with the Middleton Public Library as a Page. 

He is excited to work with various state and local agencies throughout Washington State.  

Eating the Elephant, Processing Large Requests 

Krystal Townsend 

Krystal Townsend has been serving in local government since 1999. In 2004 she was appointed as the City of Federal Way’s Deputy City Clerk and it was then that she fell in love with the world of public records requests. Since 2015 she has served as the Deputy City Clerk/Public Records Officer for the City of Kennewick. After 18 years, Krystal continues to find public records requests challenging and rewarding. She especially enjoys the evolution of public records case law and learning new, best practices from the training sessions she attends. One of her favorite responsibilities is incorporating the skills she learns from WAPRO, the Attorney General’s Office and MRSC to create engaging training presentations to assist her coworkers in Kennewick. Krystal is convinced that with the right perspective and tools, her team members will learn to love public records requests almost as much as she does! 

Preparing for PRA Litigation 

Taki Flevaris 

Taki Flevaris is a partner at Pacifica Law Group who advises and litigates on behalf of public agencies throughout the Pacific Northwest.  His practice focuses on constitutional, statutory, and regulatory compliance, the scope of governmental authority, and policy formulation and implementation.  Taki regularly counsels agencies on managing and responding to requests for public records under Washington’s Public Records Act and has assisted various agencies develop and implement effective policies for addressing the most complex and burdensome requests. He has also successfully defended agencies against legal challenges arising from such requests and sometimes assists clients in obtaining public records.   Prior to joining Pacifica, Taki was an Advocacy Fellow at the Korematsu Center for Law and Equality, a litigation associate at K&L Gates, and a law clerk to the Honorable Steven C. González of the Washington State Supreme Court. Taki is a graduate of Harvard Law School. 

Tim Reynolds 

Tim Reynolds is an attorney at Pacifica Law Group who represents school districts and other municipal clients in a variety of areas including labor and employment, employee investigations and discipline, collective bargaining, grievances and arbitration, real estate transactions, policies and procedures, public records and open public meetings, and constitutional issues. Over the course of his career Tim has developed expertise litigating and advising clients on all aspects of the Public Records Act, with a focus on providing practical advice. Prior to joining Pacifica, Tim served as both Executive Director of Legal and Labor and Interim Chief Human Resources Officer at Kent School District. Tim was also previously an associate at a Seattle-based law firm with a practice focused on representing school districts and other municipal clients. Before attending law school, Tim taught high school biology in New York City Public Schools. Tim is a graduate of the University of Washington School of Law.

Electronic Records Management Start to Finish 

Rachel Wilson 

An Air Force brat raised in Italy and Oklahoma, Rachel Wilson went to Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia to tackle a Film Studies degree before moving to Los Angeles to attend UCLA’s Moving Image Archive Studies program. Rachel previously spent time at MGM helping to coordinate its unwieldy film collection and supported content creators for PicMonkey in Seattle.  

As a Records Consultant at the Washington State Archives, Rachel is combining her passions for organization and service to help Washington’s state & local agencies manage their records 

Open Question & Answer Session 

Morgan Damerow 

Morgan Damerow serves as the Attorney General’s Office Local Government Public Records Act Consultant. In this position, Morgan provides guidance to local governments on responding to public records requests, identifying resources to develop or update technology related to public records and helping agencies respond to requests properly and efficiently. He joined the AGO in 2003 and has represented the state in numerous PRA cases as well as labor and employment matters. In 2018 he took on the creation of the AGO’s Local Government PRA Consultation Program. Morgan frequently provides training to local governments and speaks to conference participants on the Public Records Act. He is a 1997 graduate from the University of Montana, School of Law.  

Sara Di Vittorio 

Sara has served for 20 years as an attorney in Washington’s public sector.  She is currently the PRO and Assistant General Counsel to Snohomish County PUD No 1.  Sara is also a partner at Cedar Law, PLLC, where she specializes in municipal law and is available for advice, consultation, representation, or training for state agencies, counties, municipalities, charter schools or other public agencies/organizations on the Public Records Act and Open Public Meetings Act.  Sara spent seven years as a Snohomish County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney and nine years as an Assistant Attorney General handling public records requests, advice, and litigation. Sara has an extensive background in providing training on the Public Records Act, having given approximately 250 classes to government agencies and organizations throughout the state.  Sara received both her B.A. and her J.D. from UW. 

Sarah Doar 

Sarah Doar, Legal Consultant, MRSC (facilitator). Sarah joined MRSC in September 2018, after serving as Civil Deputy Prosecuting Attorney for Island County. At MRSC, Sarah provides advice to municipalities on many aspects of government, including compliance with public records and open meeting laws, land use issues, and environmental law.