We Want Information

This is a first-person account of how the Veterinary Victims League scored several hundred veterinary complaints. Now forming the nucleus of our Tails of Woe, these records likely constitute the single largest collection of such information available to the public anywhere in the world. They provide a window into veterinary practice at its most raw and the regulatory state at its, er, best, I guess.

If you're planning on doing something like this in your own neighborhood, contact us. We're always looking for expansion opportunities, and we'd also be happy to offer any advice we can.

The Beginning

States have different notions of what constitutes a public record, particularly when it pertains to state occupational licensing boards. Unlike a court case, where most of the information ends up in the public record, the people behind large portions of the adminstrative state and its occupational licensing divisions generally don't like people poking around and asking questions. In more than a few US jurisdictions, public records laws simply don't apply to most of what goes on there. In others, laws are defined such that most of the incoming complaints can be disappeared from the public record before being acted upon. Still others restrict the information under the guise of protecting privacy, arguing that secrecy for complainants creates a safe space where they can discuss their concerns freely before their complaints are tossed in the bin.

Arizona, along with several other states, is a notable exception. Perhaps as a result of its history as a libertarian frontier state with a healthy skepticism of government power, Arizona also has some of the coolest public records laws in the books, bar none, anywhere in this great nation. A lot—and I do mean a lot—of records are broadly classified as being in the public record as a matter of law, and the legal rights and precedents for inspection of said records are also rather broad.

I began looking into public records laws as a second line of progress against the state veterinary board during their handling of my veterinary complaints in 2021. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I had very little expectation of anything remotely approaching a positive outcome. I'd even spoken off the record with someone in the legal sphere who had previously had involvement with veterinary board proceedings and was told that the process is essentially pointless: Nothing ever happens aside from the occasional recordkeeping violation, and given the heartache involved there's no reason for someone to bother filing a complaint. I continued with the complaint process, viewing it as a test case, but I also wanted to see if everyone's bite at the apple was similarly rotten.

Unfortunately for Arizona's cozy cabal of pet choppers but fortunately for the rest of us, there's section 32-2237 (H) of the Arizona Revised Statutes. It specifically states that key portions of veterinary complaints are a matter of public record once the complaint has been handled. The portions deemed in the public record include the original complaint, the veterinarian's response to the complaint, discussions of the complaint, and any written reports from the Board or one of its Investigative Committees (link). I also read on the veterinary board's own public records request form that their records are available for inspection at no charge.

Obviously, I'd had no formal experience in making a public records request or dealing with a government agency in such a manner. On the other hand, I had watched Gabriel Byrne in Defence of the Realm not once but several times; his character took on the the UK government and evaded its Official Secrets Act. Compared to all that, I figured I had at least even odds of pulling this one off, so I drafted an email and sent it to Deb Turner and Jennifer Reed down at the veterinary board on April 22, 2021. In it I requested some basic parameters regarding records access, noting questions about record formats, arrangements for review, restrictions on recording devices, and any incurred charges for using my own recording device on the records. The law requires that agencies respond within a reasonable period of time, typically defined as a few business days, so the clock was ticking.

I didn't have to wait long. The next day I received a one-line response from Victoria Whitmore, the Executive Director of the state veterinary board. She confirmed that they had received the email and were putting together a plan. Several days later on April 29th I received a more detailed response. I was told that I would have to wait one or two weeks before reviewing each batch of records and that each batch would likely consist of no more than 20 records at a time. She also told me that I'd only have one hour to review all the records in a particular batch (working out to about three minutes per record if 20 were provided at a time), and that while I could take notes, photos or scans were prohibited. I could, however, have them make copies for the customary 25 cents per page. I was also told that as I was asking for three years of records, her small contingent of five employees couldn't handle it except in slow-roasted artisinal batches; it could take years to brew perfection.

Response and Retaliation

All in all, that wasn't the most viable counteroffer. It certainly didn't seem to fit the spirit of the Arizona Revised Statutes and some of it may not have been entirely legal. I'd already done considerable research on Arizona's public records laws and associated guidance from the state attorney general's office; this didn't really match up that well. For example, I knew that Arizona Revised Statutes section 39-121 specifically stated that "public records and other matters in the custody of any officer shall be open to inspection by any person at all times during office hours" (link). I also knew from the veterinary board's website that they were open from 8 AM to 5 PM, Monday through Friday, excluding state holidays.

Published guidance from the Arizona Attorney General's office also seemed to contradict other portions of what I was being told. Opinion I13-012 (R13-018), Charging Copying Fees Under Arizona's Public Records Law, concludes that "a public body has the facilities to copy records, but the requesting party would rather make copies using a personal device (to avoid a fee), this legislative intent must govern to avoid an absurd result" (link). That's certainly interesting. Even more interesting is that the Arizona Agency Handbook seemed to concur under 6.5.5 Non-Commercial Use: "Further, if the requester makes copies of public records using his or her own personal device, the agency may not charge a copying fee" (link).

I pondered the inconceivable while sipping coffee from my Arizona-themed "Been There" Starbucks mug. Was it possible they just didn't want me to see what a good job they were doing down at the sweetest little administrative agency in Arizona? Nah, that's crazy talk. What I needed was an impartial third party, someone who could look into the matter and come up with a reasonable way forward permitting access to the records. Someone to help José Citizen when nobody else will, assuming they're not too overworked to squeeze it into their schedule. Someone like...an Arizona State Ombudsman.

On May 14, 2021, I put together a six-page letter to the ombudsman's office making the above case and asking for help. Having never seen a full record for a veterinary board complaint, I estimated that each section of a report would have about five pages, yielding a total of about 20 pages for a single record; if true, my entire request would fill no more than a handful of filing boxes. I went on to argue that, assuming my estimate was true, that's actually a very small number of records in the big scheme of things; I stated that potential incompetence at managing their public records shouldn't exclude them from having to follow the law. Failing that, I asked for information on how to initiate a special action in Superior Court regarding the records. I sent it off and waited for a response.

A few days later on May 21st I received an email from Danee Garone at the state ombudsman's office. He indicated that they'd look into it, and while they were doing so, helpfully included links regarding the rules of procedure for special actions. Unfortunately, as often happens with veterinary matters, the situation had become yet more surreal. The hearing for my veterinary complaints occurred on May 19th, and after hearing what can charitably be described as a highly revised version of my complaints, I walked out of the proceedings in protest; my wife and attorney remained. The board chair, Jim Loughead, asked my wife what I did for employment and she replied that I was a software developer. He commented that my complaints were too detailed for someone without medical knowledge, instead suggesting that I had Munchausen syndrome by proxy and was responsible for my pet's death.

Such a concern had never been mentioned by any of the investigators nor, as I later learned, was such a concern noted in any of the public records portions of my own complaints. Yet nobody on the Board had any concern about the matter or raised a point of order. One possibility is that the Board accuses complainants of killing their own dogs all the time. A more likely inference was that the statement was a somewhat ham-fisted attempt at retaliation by Loughead and his colleagues for my inquiries into their practices; like a Ducey-appointed cowpoke attempting to land an Airbus Beluga, he didn't exactly stick the landing. I also relayed this to the ombudsman's office, then watched uneasily whenever a car slowly drove by our driveway in our Mesa subdivision. Fortunately, no Humane Society goons or animal cops came to steal our newly-rescued dogs.

Redactio Ad Absurdum

While waiting for an update from the ombudsman's office on the initial records request, I began shopping for a document scanning company that I could send in once I obtained access to the records somehow. Some companies seemed terminally confused by the fact that a private citizen was seeking to hire a company to scan government records, while others just never got back to me or sent a purely pro forma sales sheet. A couple of companies with existing state government contracts were actually quite interested, so I spoke with them in greater detail. One started to become more concerned as they learned about the project, with questions such as "is this for a lawsuit?" peppered throughout the conversation. The surviving company in the selection process was more than happy to take on the work, even being so kind as to quote me the standard rates they would use if I were a government agency. However, they also noted that they couldn't give me any particulars until I had more information to provide regarding the volumes and timelines.

I finally heard back from the ombudsman's office months later in September 2021. Garone suggested that based on what they knew at the time, my contention that I should be permitted to capture the documents using my own devices was likely correct. He was less certain about the other restrictions on reviewing the documents and told me he was asking for the rationale behind the agency's restrictions. He subsequently reported that he had spoken with Whitmore and learned that the difficulties allegedly stemmed from their filing system—commingling private and public records—and that redactions of private information such as home addresses would also be required. Contrary to her update to me, she told Garone that there would be no issue with me taking photos of the documents myself. She also told him that she regretted that I didn't contest the matter directly with her, as she assumed all was well with the request for records based on my parallel request for audio recordings with her Senior Medical Investigator, Tracy Riendeau.

By January of 2022, going on a year from my original request, I was able to arrange a sample batch of records from Whitmore's office and began discussing bringing my vendor in for a scan. The initial batch I requested contained all the records for the same month as my own complaints; it was helpful to see what would come out of their system as opposed to what I knew went into it for myself. Much to my surprise, and contrary to what I was expecting based on my prior readings, all complainant names had been redacted from the records I received. Even more disturbingly, they'd even gone to the effort to redact every single pet's name from the records; not content with deleting the pets' only hope of justice, they were now going on to delete them from the history books. I wondered if this was a well-intentioned but misinformed attempt at redaction or, more concerningly, an attempt to prevent people victimized by her agency from finding each other and organizing.

Her redactions of the complainant names certainly ran counter to the standard interpretation of state statute by other agencies, specifically with respect to Arizona Revised Statute 41-1010: "During the course of an investigation or enforcement action, the name of the complainant shall be a public record unless the affected agency determines that the release of the complainant's name may result in substantial harm to any person or to the public health or safety" (link). I started looking around to determine how other agencies interpreted the law in light of these redactions. I contacted the Arizona State Board of Cosmetology, another occupational licensing agency with complaints in the public record; they informed me that complainant names were part of the public record. The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality had a similar response. Other agencies, however, did consider the complainant name as non-public information, but they were also able to cite specific statutes exempting them from coverage under 41-1010; there didn't appear to be one for the veterinary board.

After another round of back-and-forth with Whitmore's office, I was able to successfully obtain records with pet and complainant name fully intact. The veterinary board also had a temp working for them to go through and redact the remaining naughty bits from the requested documents. Having some concrete numbers, I continued to coordinate with my vendor. As the months of hard-at-work government redaction wore on, I signed a formal contract with them in May 2022 to have the records scanned for a few hundred dollars, courier service back and forth to their facility included. On August 22, 2022, over a year since I originally contacted the board and made my request, the vendor went in and extracted five boxes of fun from the veterinary board's premises. It was party time here at Veterinary Victims League headquarters.

The More You Know

After being scanned by the vendor, reviewed here, and the boxes returned to the board, the last remaining task was to methodically read through every single one of the almost 500 complaints and their associated paperwork. Remembering that Stephen King once said he liked to get out about ten pages a day as an author, and keeping in mind that most of these complaints are real-life horror stories, that became an aspirational goal. It became a routine of coffee, tunes, and some of the unkindest cuts of the veterinary profession. Every day. For months.

In our system, each complaint record gets read and a summary entered into our database as an HTML file linked to the original. The complaint information and Investigative Committee votes into go into a data file. Board motions related to particular complaints go into another data file. Board orders go into yet another. Our software, originally written in a programming language called Lua and migrated to another language called Python, goes to work on all this data, combining all this disparate information into our Tails of Woe. We also have another system that takes incoming documents once they've been reviewed and uploads them directly to our account on the Internet Archive (link) so we no longer have to host this content ourselves. In fact, depending on the longevity of the Internet Archive, there's a good chance that these collective works of veterinary malefactors and government nonfactors will outlast the persons and polity responsible.

But the fun's not over yet. We've still got more records coming in and will continue to do so as long as we're allowed. We also plan to come up with our own reporting system, useful both in Arizona and outside of it, where you can contact us at the beginning of your journey and we can follow it through with you through the digestive tract of the regulatory state. We also want to use the approach we pioneered in Arizona in other states as time and staffing levels permit. Much like Gabriel Byrne's character in the aforementioned film, I'm a believer in freedom of information.