Transparency that depends on self-reporting isn’t transparency

Utah’s public-records law broke down in the simplest possible way: I asked for records, the Jordan School District said it had none because an elected official used a personal Gmail account, and when I pressed further, I was told he frequently deleted messages and had produced all he could find.

That is not transparency. It is an honor system. And honor systems fail precisely when the incentives change — when the public is asking hard questions about money, power, or major public assets. A transparency law that can be satisfied by self-reporting is a compliance loophole masquerading as accountability.

In 2022, after a public meeting about closing West Jordan Elementary, I filed a request under Utah’s open-records law, the Government Records Access and Management Act, or GRAMA, for emails and texts about the closure and the property’s future. I spent thousands of dollars of my own money and hired the law firm that worked on Utah’s public-records law to sort it out. Even then, the system led back to the same place: self-reporting.

One school board member, Darrell Robinson, used a personal Gmail account for public business, including during the time that the board was considering the fate of West Jordan Elementary. At the March 16, 2023 hearing, the district’s position was that GRAMA covers records “maintained by the entity,” not an elected official’s personal inbox, and that the district had no responsive records maintained from that account.

When I narrowed the request and asked again, including texts, the school district’s attorney said the district could ask Robinson to check his email for responsive records, but could not require him to do so. He also confirmed that, as a courtesy, the district had asked Robinson anyway and sent me whatever he provided. At that same hearing, the district’s attorney said “the remedy is the ballot box, not GRAMA.”

If a public records request can be satisfied by whatever the record-holder chooses to keep — and chooses to disclose — then the public’s right to know becomes optional.

That is not a workable accountability model. The ballot box can correct bad decisions, but it cannot correct decisions made off the record. It cannot recover communications that were never preserved in the first place.

After my case, Utah’s Records Management Committee urged Jordan School District to update its records policy, train staff and elected officials, and monitor compliance, specifically addressing the real-world issue of conducting government business on a personal device or account. That guidance was sensible. But guidance cannot bring back a record that was never saved.

This is not a zoning argument. It is a recordkeeping argument. And it matters most when public assets and public money are involved.

On Aug. 26, 2025, Jordan School District approved an “Ivory Trade Agreement” involving four surplus district properties, including West Jordan Elementary, in exchange for approximately 60 acres for a future high school, with Darrell Robinson voting to support the deal. 

I am not alleging collusion with any developer. The point is narrower, and more important: when key discussions occur on personal accounts and are not preserved, citizens cannot verify promises, timelines, or outside influence in high-value public land decisions. Even honest decisions become harder to defend when the record is incomplete, and distrust fills the vacuum.

Utah’s problem is not just that this area of the law is weak. It is that the loophole is hard to enforce after the fact. Once public business is routed through a personal account and the process depends on voluntary preservation, there is no realistic way for a citizen to prove what was withheld, deleted, or never saved. Utah lawmakers have left that core problem in place.

The fix is straightforward and should not be partisan.

First, public-business communications should have to be preserved regardless of device or account. “Search your own inbox” cannot be the standard.

Second, there should be meaningful consequences and a clear enforcement path when records are destroyed to avoid disclosure.

Third, audits and training should prove compliance, not merely suggest it.

The ballot box matters. But it cannot replace transparency. Voters cannot hold officials accountable for decisions they cannot see. A system that depends on self-reporting does not deserve the public’s trust. When records can vanish, citizens and journalists cannot verify what happened, and public accountability collapses into competing stories.

Disclosure: Tim McConnehey is a West Jordan resident and the GRAMA requester in the Jordan School District matter described. He has no financial interest in Jordan School District or Ivory Land Corporation/Ivory Homes.