Troubling times.

There's no other way to describe it when a city government chooses not to release information that is, in our view, about as "public" as it gets.

The Daily Times formally requested all applications for the soon-to-be-vacant Farmington city manager's position March 1. We believe, as a watchdog of publicly funded entities, we have full rights to vital information under New Mexico's Inspection of Public Records Act. And, in truth, any citizen has that very same ability to request public documents, and receive them for inspection within a short time period of no more than 15 days.

The City Council, in a tight 3-2 decision, denied this newspaper's request March 5, setting the stage for a looming legal battle over 90 applications for city manager. The city claims it owes all applicants a level of confidentiality until a final list of 10 is whittled down by a small citizens group, the City Council and city department heads.

In its view, the city believes releasing the names of all applicants would hinder its attempt to create a large pool of candidates for Farmington's top administrative job. City leadership also is receiving what we think is poor legal advice from its own attorney, Jay Burnham, who believes Farmington does not have to release the applications.

It's simple. Applicants for city manager in any American city should be available for public viewing. Some ask what in the world would we do with all those applications, and why are we picking on the city? Beside the fact that we believe the city is breaking the law, we have many reasons for wanting to see those applications.

How many candidates are local residents? How many come from other parts of the state or country? How racially diverse is the applicant pool? How many men? How many women? Do any qualified applicants have a contentious past history with the current leadership? Do any have a criminal background? These are but a few of the darn good reasons we have for wanting copies of the applications.

And we do have more.

Most importantly, we owe it to our readers to let them know who is applying for this extremely important job. Only an elitist form of government that hides in the shadows of secrecy thinks you, a tax-paying citizen, don't need to see the list until its trimmed down to candidates of serious consideration. Unfortunately, that appears to be the approach of our current city leadership.

A precedent already was established in New Mexico when the Carlsbad Current-Argus fought a similar battle with the city of Carlsbad for the names of applicants for its top city job. The newspaper sued the city in 2005, won the case and got the public records. The cost to the city of Carlsbad? About $15,000 in court fees, including the newspaper's expenses.

In addition, the city of Santa Fe had no problem at all in giving the Santa Fe New Mexican all the names of applicants for its city manager position, which was filled last week. "We did this novel thing of reading the Inspection of Public Records Act," Santa Fe City Attorney Frank Katz told a Daily Times reporter. After reading the act, Katz said he thought the only right thing to do was to release the information. It's too bad Farmington's city attorney isn't giving similar advice.

Instead, Burnham believes the Carlsbad case does not set a precedent since it was decided in another judicial district. But, the law is the law, and the city is running away from it. Furthermore, the intent of the law is to allow public accountability, and why would our city, law or no law, not lean more to that direction?

Regardless of the legal outcome, it seems already to be a black eye for the city to even engage in such a fight to maintain secrecy.

The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government has since joined the fight to get those public applications. "By law, these are public records," Foundation Director Bob Johnson said. "It's covered by the Inspection of Public Records Act."

The law provides the public and media access to information deemed of importance to the public interest. It's one of the fundamental rights of a democratic society.

We are prepared to see this through to the end, wherever it may lead. We have no other choice when it comes to the battle to keep government open and accessible to the public.