She Has Sold Us Out (Sidebar): how Gail Griffin has placed special interests over Arizona's future water security
Sidebar: Arizona Department of Water Resources stonewalls release of Griffin emails
In recent years, Arizona State Representative Gail Griffin has gained a reputation as being perhaps the biggest obstacle our state faces to any attempt at reigning in our growing water crisis.
Even as homes and municipal wells run dry in her own district-- as roads are torn apart by earth fissures caused by unchecked and rapacious groundwater use-- the Hereford-based lawmaker has sat as head of the Arizona House of Representatives' water committee and killed every common sense attempt at legislation to secure our future water supply.
Given this track record, Cochise Regional News has conducted an investigation of the lawmaker's activities, in the hope that we can help shed some light on Griffin, her values and motivations.
What we have found is the story of how one inveterate lawmaker, from a sparsely populated rural district, has held water policy for the entire state hostage-- for the clear benefit of the special interests who serve her interests.
This is a sidebar to CRN's a three-part investigative series concerning Griffin. If you have not yet read this series, please do so-- this will make a lot more sense. Here are the links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
Arizona water regulatory agency blocks release of Griffin communications records
The state agency charged with implementing Arizona water regulations has been stonewalling release of public records relating to Representative Gail Griffin's interactions with the agency for more than a year.
As we have discussed through this series, Griffin is the longtime chair of the Arizona House of Representatives' Natural Resources, Energy and Water Committee. The Hereford-based lawmaker and realtor has been subject to substantial criticism in recent years-- from her own constituents and fellow Republicans-- for blocking legislation intended to address the state's growing water crisis and for enabling controversial efforts to divert water resources to real estate developments.
The Arizona Department of Water Resources (DWR), for its part, has also been subject to criticism in recent years related to its apparent inability, or unwillingness, to adequately enforce state groundwater regulations.
Given Griffin's and DWR's controversial track records, Cochise Regional News submitted a public records request to the Arizona Department of Water Resources (DWR) on September 5, 2023, seeking communications between Griffin and the agency's administrators.
The degree of stonewalling CRN has faced in trying to access these records over the past year has been substantial.
The September 5, 2023 public records request sought all records of communications, generated from January 2015 through the date of the request, between Griffin, her staff, and DWR personnel employed in the office of the DWR director-- to include the director, deputy director, legislative liaison, and their respective assistants.
Per this request, “communications” sought included emails, texts, memoranda, letters, records of meetings, etc.
DWR Public Information Officer Shauna Evans, in her initial response to this public records request, stated that the request would take a substantial period of time to process unless CRN narrowed the request by specific “keywords.” Without such narrowing, said Evans, the release of these public records would be subject to a “slow turnaround” time.
The catch here is that in order to narrow a public records request by specific “keywords” to be used in an email search, CRN would need to have foreknowledge of the contents of Griffin's communications with DWR administrators-- when the purpose of the public records request is to learn the contents of Griffin's communications with DWR administrators.
In response to DWR's “keyword” demand, CRN instead offered to narrow the scope of the request by personnel, if DWR would advise as to which of its personnel were in possession of communications with Griffin.
DWR did not respond to multiple inquiries from CRN regarding this.
In May 2024-- eight months from the submission of the request for public records relating to Griffin's communications with DWR leadership-- CRN again attempted to follow up with Evans regarding the agency's progress in processing the request.
In response, on May 29, Evans advised CRN that DWR had “conducted a preliminary search and found that, without key terms, your request poses a significant administrative challenge to fill. This in turn is resulting in the extended turnaround time your records request is experiencing.”
CRN again advised Evans that we would be happy to narrow by personnel if DWR would identify which agency personnel were found to be in possession of Griffin communications through the “preliminary search” referenced by Evans.
DWR did not respond to this.
Because DWR had been refusing to supply this information, CRN then voluntarily narrowed the public records request to seek only records of communications between Griffin herself and the DWR director, deputy director, and legislative liaison personnel, within the same time period.
This refinement eliminated the need for DWR to search for communications from Griffin staffers, or to search records of DWR leadership's administrative assistants or other administrative personnel at the director's office.
Additionally, on May 30, Dianne Post, an attorney representing CRN, contacted Evans and other DWR personnel, urging the agency to comply with Arizona public records law, and asking the agency to confirm that it had received CRN's narrowing of the public records request.
On June 10, DWR Deputy Counsel Karen Nielsen responded to Post, and stated that even the narrowed request (for communications between Griffin, the DWR director, deputy director, and legislative liaison) produced at least 10,000 responsive emails alone.
Take a moment to consider this claim. DWR's attorney is stating that Gail Griffin and a handful of DWR's top administrators have exchanged more than 10,000 emails since 2015.
As such, said Nielsen, CRN's request for these public records would continue to be subject to extraordinary processing time, unless CRN narrowed this request by specific keywords.
Again, to imagine CRN could provide keyword search terms is to imagine that CRN already knows the contents of Griffin's communications with DWR administrative personnel-- when the purpose of such a public records request is for CRN, and its readers, to gain knowledge of these communications.
On June 10, CRN, through our attorney, further refined the public records request.
This further-narrowed version of the request for public records seeks only email communications (excluding all other communications records-- like texts, memos, meeting records, etc.) between Gail Griffin, the DWR director, deputy director, and legislative liaison.
Where the initial records request sought all communications from January 2015 through September 2023 (a nearly nine-year span), this further-narrowed request seeks only email communications between the listed parties from January 2022 through June 10, 2024 (a span of two and a half years).
Through this correspondence with DWR, CRN also again made it explicitly clear that we are seeking only emails to and from Griffin herself-- not emails in which the word “Griffin” appears (just in case this is why DWR claimed there were more than 10,000 responsive emails).
Additionally, in an effort to aid DWR in locating emails to and from Griffin, CRN also supplied the agency with both Griffin's official Arizona House email address, as well as her personal Gmail address (through which she has been known to conduct communications relating to her legislative office).
On July 10, CRN attorney Post wrote Nielsen to inquire as to the status of the request. We received no reply.
On July 24, Post again wrote Nielsen to inquire about the request's status. This time Nielsen did reply, making it clear DWR has no intention of releasing the Griffin emails any time soon.
“As I indicated in my previous email, we are working promptly to fulfill [CRN's] request but even with the amendments to [CRN publisher/reporter Beau Hodai's] original request there are thousands of possible responsive records we must review, which will take a significant amount of time,” said Nielsen. “We are not required to give a date certain when we will produce the records and are unable to do so.” [sic]
In response to a similar inquiry from CRN attorney Post in September, Nielsen reiterated.
In her email of June 10, Nielsen offered to provide records to CRN as they are processed (reviewed and redacted) and become available for release, rather than waiting to deliver all records once all records are processed.
In our response, CRN took Nielsen up on that offer.
Four additional months have passed, and we are now more than a full year from the date of this public record request's submission in September 2023. In this time, DWR has not provided a single record of Griffin's communications with the agency's administrators.
So, there you have it. Cochise Regional News has been trying to gain access to public records of communications between Rep. Gail Griffin and DWR administration for more than a year-- so that you, Griffin's constituents, can see what she has, or has not, been up to in terms of influencing the administration of Arizona water policy.
According to DWR, Griffin and DWR administrators likely engaged in “thousands” of emails over the past two and a half years (a time of heightened concern over our groundwater and its uses).
You, Griffin's constituents, will likely not see any of those emails anytime soon-- most likely not before the November 5 election, through which Griffin is asking for your vote so that she may continue on as head of the House water committee.
Cochise Regional News submitted written questions to Griffin regarding Nielsen's claims and these DWR communications.
Though these questions, CRN asked Griffin if it is true she has engaged in thousands of emails with DWR administrators during this period-- and, if true, we also asked what the nature/subject matters of those communications were.
Griffin did not respond to these questions.
[Read the full Griffin investigative series here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.]
Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News-- October 7, 2024