The NFOIC open government blog is a compendium of original concepts and analysis as well as ideas, edited excerpts and materials from a variety of sources. When the information comes from another source, we will attribute it and provide a link. The blog relies on the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited; we will correct errors and inaccuracies when we become aware of them.
For Advocate posts prior to July, 2011, visit http://foiadvocate.blogspot.com/.
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From Watchdog.org: HONOLULU — Aloha, U.S. Secret Service? You’ve been served. About those vacations to Hawaii, we want to know how much they’re costing taxpayers.
Judicial Watch Inc., a nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based organization that focuses on transparency and accountability in government, filed the lawsuit May 6 to obtain from the U.S. Secret Service financial records related to the first family’s Hawaiian vacations.
From eNews Park Forest: WASHINGTON--(ENEWSPF)--May 13 - Today the consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch announced that it sued the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), saying that the agency has unlawfully ignored a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records related to arsenic-based drugs known as “arsenicals” that are added to poultry feed.
[...]
Food & Water Watch alleges that the agency has not responded to a FOIA request that it and CLF submitted last year. The organizations are seeking correspondence between the agency and the drug company Pfizer concerning arsenicals.
From Carroll County Times: A nonpartisan organization dedicated to the freedom of information has awarded the Carroll County Times a $12,500 grant to help cover litigation costs to fight a petition filed by the Carroll County Board of Commissioners that asks a judge to approve the county's policy of redacting email addresses from Maryland Public Information Act requests.
The National Freedom of Information Coalition announced Friday that the grant to the Times is provided by the Knight Freedom of Information Fund, which it administers. The fund, which was created in 2010, offers financial support in open government lawsuits, according to the organization.
“It is mind-boggling to me how often public officials around the country feel they are entitled to a pick-and-choose attitude toward public accountability laws,” Ken Bunting, executive director of NFOIC, said in a prepared release.
From The Ledger: LAKELAND | Joel Chandler, a public records access advocate from Lakeland, is in hot water in a Ninth Judicial Circuit Court case. A judge has forwarded a document from the public records case to prosecutors for investigation. There's at least a possibility Chandler could face jail time.
[...]
Chandler is alleged to have deliberately misled the court by not being truthful when he submitted an application asking for indigent status when he filed a public records lawsuit against the Saint Cloud Police Department. People who are poor enough to qualify don't have to pay the $400 fee to file a lawsuit.
A few state FOIA and local open government news items selected from many of interest that we might or might not have drawn attention to earlier in the week. While you're at it, be sure to check out State FOIA Friday Archives.
Attorney General issues informal opinion on Iowa Public Radio questions
The intent of Iowa Public Radio to operate consistent with Iowa Public Records and Open Meetings Laws will be written into the organization’s operating agreement when that document is renewed in July, according to state officials. Some questions recently were raised about whether Iowa Public Radio is a government entity that is subject to Open Meetings and Public Records laws. The attorney representing the organization argued that despite the function it serves in the management of state-owned assets and its ties to the state Board of Regents, IPR is not a “governmental body” in the eyes of the law. But, he added, the organization has a commitment to transparency and generally allows the public to attend meetings and its information should be as open to public inspection as possible.
Visit The Gazette for the rest.
Yarmouth Housing Authority violated Open Meeting Law
YARMOUTH — The Yarmouth Housing Authority violated the state’s Open Meeting Law by failing to include sufficient detail in minutes of two executive sessions, according to a ruling of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office. Elvio Rodrigues filed the complaint on behalf of the Yarmouth Preservation Committee alleging that the minutes from the Jan. 10, 2012, and Feb. 14, 2012, executive sessions were incomplete. Hanne Rush, assistant attorney general in the Division of Open Government, stated in a letter to Rodrigues on April 17, “We find that the minutes were not sufficient for purpose of the Open Meeting Law” and she clarified that “the minutes should contain enough detail and accuracy so that a member of the public who did not attend the meeting could read the minutes and have a clear understanding of what occurred.”
Visit Wicked Local for the rest.
ACLU of New Jersey seeks records tied to $11 million in state grants to religious schools
The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey filed a public records request on Thursday demanding the disclosure of guidelines that the Christie administration followed when it granted $11 million to two religious schools, almost all of it to an orthodox Jewish rabbinical school. The money was included among in $1.3 billion in publicly funded higher education projects that the Christie administration approved last week, to be funded in part with the proceeds of a $750 million capital construction bond that voters approved last fall.
Visit NorthJersey.com for the rest.
Coliseum hid reports of financial woes, records show
The overseers of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum concealed from the public independent reports of lax financial controls and widespread spending abuses at the taxpayer-owned stadium that included sloppy accounting of hot dog sales and excessive perks for managers, records show. Problems detailed in the reports by two independent audit and consulting firms compounded money woes that leaders of the Coliseum Commission cited as a chief reason they decided to turn over stewardship of the two-time Olympic venue to USC.
Visit Los Angeles Times for the rest.
New Jersey bill would make mug shots public records
Just as Utah officials are looking for ways to restrict access to mug shots, New Jersey is going in the opposite direction. The Daily Record of Parsippany, N.J., reports that a bill is moving through the Garden State’s legislature classifying booking photos as public records. The state’s open-records laws were ambiguous on the point, with some counties denying access and others granting it.
Visit The Salt Lake Tribune for the rest.
AP Exclusive: Lawmakers granted Calif. health exchange unusual secrecy in contracting records
LOS ANGELES - A California law that created an agency to oversee national health care reforms granted it sweeping authority to conceal spending on the contractors that will perform most of its functions, creating a barrier from public disclosure that stands out nationwide. ... An Associated Press review of the 16 other states that have opted for state-run marketplaces shows the California agency was given powers that are the most restrictive in what information is required to be made public.
Visit Star Tribune for the rest.
New Mexico's health insurance exchange subject to state's open government laws
SANTA FE, New Mexico — New Mexico's open government laws will apply to a state-run health insurance exchange that will serve as a marketplace for the uninsured to buy medical coverage. Legislation enacted this year makes clear the exchange and its 13-member governing board must comply with New Mexico's Open Meetings Act and the Inspection of Public Records Act.
Visit The Republic for the rest.
Ruling affects Tennessee open records law
The Tennessee Open Records Law is one of several state laws upheld in a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling for its limitations on requests for public records by those who live outside of the state in question. In an unanimous opinion April 29, the high court ruled it is legal for a state to limit the use of its open records or Freedom of Information Act law to its own residents.
Visit Memphis Daily News for the rest.
Connecticut FOI panel backs dismissal of complaint about Rowland's Waterbury post
HARTFORD – The state Freedom of Information Commission – rejecting claims that the city of Waterbury failed to produce certain public records – Wednesday unanimously affirmed a hearing officer’s report dismissing the New Haven Register’s complaint regarding former Gov. John Rowland’s taxpayer-funded consulting job with the Greater Waterbury Chamber of Commerce. The city acknowledged through testimony that hundreds of thousands of dollars changed hands and went directly to Rowland and was unable to produce checks or money transfer documents to the chamber.
Visit Housatonic Times for the rest.
Vermont house approves opening police investigation files
In a unanimous voice vote, the Vermont House pushed the state’s open records law one step closer to the federal open records model established by the decades-old Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The legislation, S.148, applies only to “records dealing with the detection and investigation of crime,” typically held by law enforcement officials.
Visit Vtdigger.org for the rest.
Press release from NFOIC: COLUMBIA, Mo. (May 9, 2013) – A small daily newspaper has been awarded a $12,500 litigation grant from the Knight FOI Fund after being rebuffed and stonewalled for months in its efforts to get email distribution lists from the board of commissioners in a rural Maryland county.
The National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC), which administers the Knight FOI Fund, awarded the grant to The Carroll County Times of Westminster, Md., after the newspaper's public records requests for the lists were greeted by pleas to back off, intimidation, a legislative effort to change the law and ultimately a legal challenge initiated by county officials.
Please see the complete press release here.
From Minnesota Public Radio: ROSEVILLE, Minn. — The company hired to oversee a major reconstruction project for the St. Louis County Schools will argue today before the Minnesota Supreme Court that certain data involved in the project is not subject to the state's open records law.
Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls was hired to oversee the $79 million plan and hired a subcontractor, Hibbing-based Architectural Resources, to help complete the job. When a local newspaper started asking questions about the project and asked to see the contract, the companies refused, saying an agreement between two private companies was not subject to the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act.
From Courthouse News Service: AUSTIN (CN) - Prison Legal News sued the Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest private prison contractor, for records about its contracts in Texas and lawsuits filed against CCA there.
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"Privately operated prisons and jails are notorious for their abhorrent conditions," Prison Legal News says in its complaint. "Although they perform a government function, they are driven by a profit model that cuts costs for the benefit of shareholders and to the detriment of basic services, security, and oversight. Prison Legal News seeks to enforce its rights under the Public Information Act to investigate details about these facilities in Texas."
From AL.com: BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - At AL.com's request, a judge this morning dismissed the media company's lawsuit, including a temporary restraining order issued in the case, that had sought public records from the Birmingham Airport Authority regarding a flight information display that collapsed and killed a 10-year-old boy in March.
Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Boohaker issued an order dismissing the lawsuit but allowing AL.com to seek more records in the future. AL.com has already received thousands of pages of documents related to its requests since filing a lawsuit last month against the authority.
A few state FOIA and local open government news items selected from many of interest that we might or might not have drawn attention to earlier in the week. While you're at it, be sure to check out State FOIA Friday Archives.
Opinion: 514 days later, no use for records
A year and a half is a long time to wait for most things, but especially something that the state of North Carolina requires be given to you quickly. On Thursday, the University finally complied with a public records request I made in the fall of 2011 — a whopping 514 days after submission.
Visit The Daily Tar Heel for the rest.
State sues City of Huntington for FOIA request denial
HUNTINGTON – The State of West Virginia, by way of Charleston attorney Michael T. Clifford, is suing the City of Huntington for refusing to release records requested through the Freedom of Information Act. Clifford represents the Estate of Joshua Jonnie Emerson, who was shot to death by Huntington Police Officer Stephen Fitz on Dec. 22, according to a complaint filed March 28 in Cabell Circuit Court.
Visit The West Virginia Record for the rest.
Death certificates should stay public
On Friday, the General Assembly's public health committee will vote on a bill that would wrongly restrict public access to death certificates of children under 18. The bill represents an understandable but fraught and unwise reaction by some local officials to the slaughter of 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School last Dec. 14.
Visit Hartford Courant for the rest.
Maine official: I was harassed for not shredding public documents
AUGUSTA — A division director at the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention has filed a discrimination claim with the Maine Human Rights Commission, alleging that senior managers assaulted and harassed her after she refused an order to shred public records. Sharon Leahy-Lind of Portland, director of the CDC's Division of Local Public Health, alleges in the complaint that her supervisor, CDC Deputy Director Christine Zukas, told her last spring to shred documents related to the competitive awards of funding to health outreach nonprofits under the Healthy Maine Partnership. She did not comply, believing it would be illegal.
Visit Kennebec Journal for the rest.
Oakland Code for America: Building a better public requests system (Community Voices)
Humans are profoundly resourceful and, at a basic level, selfish. We all have needs that must get filled. ... One of the spaces that my teammates and I researched in February, and are now working on a solution for, is the way the city of Oakland handles public records requests. There are many channels in which record requests are currently being made and many channels through which they get fulfilled.
Visit Oakland Local for the rest.
Indiana Senate committee amends bill setting fees for public records
An Indiana Senate committee today passed an amendment to a bill that would allow state and local government agencies to charge members of the public up to $20 an hour to search for public records. The Senate Tax and Fiscal Policy Committee voted 9-1 to amend House Bill 1175 with language that would let people use cellphones or other hand-held devices to take pictures of their own documents such as property records while inside county recorders’ offices.
Visit Indianapolis Star for the rest.
City releases consultant's report about police outsourcing
Last year City Council hired Management Consultants to review proposals for potential police outsourcing to save money in Pacifica's budget, but the consultant's report was not made public. The two proposals the city received, one from South San Francisco and one from the San Mateo County Sheriff, were made public, but an overview of the proposals made by the consultant was never released. The city attorney, Michelle Kenyon, maintained the report was private under attorney-client privilege because it pertained to employee negotiations. The Pacifica Tribune filed a request to see the report under the Freedom of Information Act. The request was denied by Michael Guina of Kenyon's law firm, Burke, Williams and Sorenstein in this letter dated Sept. 28, 2012.
Visit Mercury News for the rest.
Fallin clashes again with media over records requests
Being governor of Oklahoma has its privileges, which is the case in every other state as well. But apparently the Oklahoma governor has a few more privileges than most governors have. At least, that seems to be Gov. Mary Fallin's view. For example, when reporters demand public records under the state Open Records Act, Fallin can release the ones she feels comfortable releasing, and then claim she has "executive privilege" or "deliberative process privilege" or some other such privilege to keep other records from public view.
Visit Tulsa World for the rest.
Advocate sues LSU over president search records
The Advocate and LSU’s student newspaper filed public records lawsuits against the LSU Board of Supervisors on Monday, seeking documents related to LSU’s search for a new president of the state’s flagship university. That search, conducted largely in secret, yielded F. King Alexander — president of Cal State University in Long Beach, Calif. — as the sole finalist for LSU’s top post.
Visit The Advocate for the rest.
TEXAS VIEW: Attack of Open Meetings Act ends
The U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t have time for speciousness and frivolity. We wish we could say the same for public officials from 15 Texas cities, including Rockport. They spent nearly nine years trying to undermine the Texas Open Meetings Act until the court put an abrupt stop to it last Monday by declining to review their case. The plaintiffs argued that this cherished bulwark of the principle of open government violated another cherished right — theirs to free speech. How? Well, apparently the notion that two Alpine city councilwomen shouldn’t have emailed each other and two other council members privately to discuss official city business, and that they could have faced criminal penalties for having done so, was a tyrannical threat to the First Amendment.
Visit Odessa American for the rest.
From eCreditDaily:
A prominent Washington law firm is suing to get bank regulators to reveal more details behind the failed Independent Foreclosure Review, which after about 18 months and $2 billion spent was mostly scuttled recently in favor of a $9.3 billion settlement.
In its FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) lawsuit filed on March 27, Williams & Connolly wants the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to provide more details as to the hiring of the independent consultants by some of the biggest U.S. banks in the failed review process.
A few state FOIA and local open government news items selected from many of interest that we might or might not have drawn attention to earlier in the week. While you're at it, be sure to check out State FOIA Friday Archives and check out those pieces we linked to as part of our Sunshine Week News coverage.
Freelance reporter files three FOIA suits
CHARLESTON – A freelance reporter who contributes to the West Virginia Record filed three Freedom of Information lawsuits last week in Kanawha and Jackson counties. The defendants in the lawsuits are the West Virginia State Police and Col. Jay Smithers; Blaine Hess and the Jackson County Board of Education; and Teresa Tarr and the West Virginia Judicial Investigation Commission.
Visit The West Virginia Record for the rest.
The Public’s Beeswax
A jury this month declared guilty of corruption five former councilmembers of the city of Bell in Los Angeles County. For running a town that is a little larger than Eureka, with a similar percentage of people living in poverty, they had each received salaries more than 10 times what Eureka pays its city leaders. ... That story first broke when two reporters from the Los Angeles Times, Jeff Gottlieb and Ruben Vives, requested salary figures for city leaders under the California Public Records Act.
Visit North Coast Journal for the rest.
FOIA complaint: Attorney General's Office finds Woodbridge in violation
BRIDGEVILLE – Delaware’s Attorney General’s Office has ruled in favor of Greenwood resident Daniel Kramer’s Freedom of Information Act complaint against the Woodbridge School District board of education, saying the school board was in FOIA violation in dealing with the resignation of then superintendent Dr. Phyllis Kohel and the hiring of then assistant superintendent Heath Chasanov as the district’s new superintendent in July 2012.
Visit Delaware.Newszap.com for the rest.
Breaking the law to publish the law: Open government advocate digitizes entirety of D.C. code
Sitting in front of me is a copy of one volume of the D.C. Code, the compendium of laws that govern everything from criminal acts to when and how you can rent your home to a stranger. This particularly volume, which covers Titles 43-46, has seen better days: the elegantly bound book has had its pages torn from its binding, as if someone was purposely trying to take the book apart. That's actually exactly what happened.
Visit DCist for the rest.
North Dakota open government wins, loses
Open government scored a victory and a defeat Wednesday in the North Dakota Legislature. The state Senate approved an amendment to House Bill 1215, involving the charged issue of a school district allowing concealed carry in its buildings. Lawmakers voted to remove the controversial amendment, which would have allowed districts to decide the fate of concealed carry in executive session, away from the ears of the public.
Visit Williston Herald for the rest.
Holding accountable all levels of government
A couple of weeks ago a couple of harbingers of Spring came and went, and each acknowledges how we depend on sunshine. One was Daylight Savings Time, letting us think about spring and more sunlight, and the other was “Sunshine Week,” a time to promote and praise transparency in government: open government.
Visit Tri States Public Radio for the rest.
Governor proposes $10 charge to access court files
Sacramento — Gov. Jerry Brown wants to let state courts charge the public $10 just to access files at county courthouses, one of a handful of provisions in his proposed budget that puts a price tag on the public’s right to know. Terry Francke, co-founder and general counsel of the open-government group Californians Aware, likened the court-fee proposal to installing coin-operated turnstiles at courthouse doors.
Visit U-T San Diego for the rest.
