Someone should ask for records about this

A Lawrence (Massachusetts) school principal has been placed on leave while the administration investigates teachers union allegations that she promoted her racy romance novel during faculty meetings.

Which is worse?

A government subsidy for a torture porn producer, or publicizing the record confirming it was given?

Proposed reforms in state sunshine laws

At WikiFOIA, we’re trying hard to stay on top of this year’s crop of state legislative changes to state sunshine laws.

Here’s the list of proposed changes for Alabama-Kentucky. Then there’s the list for Louisiana-North Dakota and the list for Ohio to Wyoming.

I’m sure the lists aren’t altogether complete–although the lists as they are include many, many proposed changes. If you know of a proposed change in your state that’s not yet mentioned, please do add it.

Michael Butler: Sunshine Troublemaker of the Week

Please meet our newest STOTW honoree, Michael Butler of Hallandale Beach, Florida.

Mike is the 46th recipient of our Sunshine Troublemaker of the Week award, adding to our healthy crop of Florida sunshine lovers.

According to Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper our STOTW is nothing but a political operative.

The mayor skates over or is unfamiliar with the part of the Florida Sunshine Law that says that why someone wants records is irrelevant. Lots of government officials in Florida have a similar misunderstanding.

As a result, Mayor Joy Cooper and four city commissioners voted last week to pay an attorney $185/hour to fight Butler’s records request.

Butler blogs at Change Hallandale. What he wants is very simple: He wants to know who received an email from Mayor Joy Cooper bragging about her record of mayoral accomplishments.

We welcome Butler to this exclusive fraternity of STOTWs and wish him the best in getting that email. Maybe he’ll get a $225,000 settlement as well.

Pity the King County taxpayer

In January, the Washington State Supreme Court ordered that King County should pay a larger-than-$124,000-fine in the case of Yousoufian v. Sims

Last week, more bad news for taxpayers but good news for FOIA advocates when King County agreed to pay blogger Stefan Sharkansky $225,000 to settle an open records lawsuit brought by Sharkansky because of King County’s failure to provide election records he requested in December 2004.

So the bill for King County taxpayers is at least $350,000…except it’ll be more, because the state supreme court ordered an elevation of the first fine…and because King County is currently using scarce tax dollars for a Hail Mary appeal of the Supreme Court’s verdict.

This is all in addition to the $541,000 the State Department of Corrections was ordered to pay in 2007, and I’m sure there are others I’ve missed.

Virginia FOIA video

The Virginia Coalition for Open Government has produced a 7+ minute video on using Virginia’s sunshine law:

Joe Arpaio lawsuit commences

Sheriff Joe Arpaio continues to make himself unpopular with some people–okay, a lot of people. He has now filed a lawsuit to block the Maricopa County from implementing a new form that imposes restrictions on how county employees can file records requests, over-and-above the provisions in the Arizona Sunshine Law.

Local reporters are mulling over the concept of Arpaio as a sunshine advocate.

Courts and open records

Where I live, the Wisconsin Supreme Court is debating whether to allow a collective bargaining agreement between the state and a public employee union to trump the state’s open records’ laws.

In Ohio, the Ohio Supreme Court just disappointed the FOIA community by ruling that reports by private attorneys for government agencies are not public records.

In Florida, the simmering battle over STOTW Joel Chandler just took an interesting turn when prosecutors charged Wes Bridges, a lawyer for the Polk County School District with violating the Florida Sunshine Law when Bridges failed to release records to Chandler on a timely basis.

The penalty against Bridges, if the charges are sustained, could be as high as a year in jail and $1,000.

Such small victories

In South Dakota, the Office of Hearing Examiners has ruled that state permits issued to large businesses and agricultural processing projects for tax refunds must be open to public inspection. Such large projects can get refunds of sales taxes and contractor’s excise taxes.

Seriously. How could anyone imagine that there should be an exception of any kind for such records.

Private university foundation in Pennsylvania told to provide records

The Pocono News has won a partial victory in its quest for records of the East Stroudsburg University Foundation under the re-vamped Pennsylvania Sunshine Law.

The ESU Foundation is nominally a private, non-profit corporation. However, as the newspaper argued, “…the foundation, which raises money and administers scholarships on behalf of the university, acted as a third-party contractor performing a governmental function. Under the new law, records pertaining to the completing of a public function are to be made public.”

The ESU Foundation, and ESU, argued that:

• The ESU Foundation is not a public entity that falls under the provisions of the law.
• The work performed by the ESU Foundation is not an essential government function.

The decision in favor of some disclosure comes from the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records. Their ruling is an administrative decision and it can, and probably will, be appealed to a Pennsylvania court within 30 days.

See also:

Private agencies, public dollars.