Frustrating search for public information on Long Island

Let's see.

Newsday last week made a Freedom of Information Law request to Nassau police.

Which prompted police officials, who are public employees, to pull in even more officials before deciding to deny the request.

Why?

Because the newspaper's request prompted police to launch an investigation of one of its officers -- which authorities then cited as justification for barring release of public records.

The incident is one in a series of troubling recent instances where paths to gathering public information were made unduly complicated.

In October, Oyster Bay Town officials -- again, public employees, on public time -- relied on another public employee, a Nassau County police officer, to escort a Newsday reporter from a public space, Town Hall, after he had requested information that should have been readily available for inspection.

There's more.

Recently, Nassau released portions of County Executive Edward Mangano's public calendar, which was put together, again, on public time, by public employees.

The version received by Newsday, however, had some information redacted -- presumably as the result of public employees, again on public time, being asked to remove them.

But let's not just single out Nassau, because Suffolk's been doing some mighty fine sidestepping on a few issues, too.

Take the red-light camera programs operating in Suffolk and Nassau.

Both counties say they can't release statistics about how they handle parking tickets because county parking and traffic violations bureaus are part of the state's court system -- even though a spokesman for the state court system says that's not so.

Which leaves Long Islanders with no way to make an independent assessment of whether the programs promote public safety, or whether, as some critics contend, they're used primarily to bring in revenue.

Then came the dustup over a public information request that spurred a Nassau police investigation of an officer, along with denial of Newsday's request.

After saying there was an investigation, the department did a turnaround.

There was no investigation, a spokesman said, only an inquiry. But then the department made another turn, saying there would be no inquiry without a specific allegation against the officer.

Meanwhile, Newsday's request for records is pending.

Robert Freeman, executive director of the New York State Committee on Open Government, said he'd never heard of an agency starting an investigation based on a records request -- and then using it to deny access to the records.

"I've been doing this for 41 years, and one of the things that keeps me going is that I hear something new every day," said Freeman, the state's expert on itsfreedom of information law.

"This is indeed a new one," he said.

Even as the unnecessarily complicated quest for public information on Long Island goes on.