Friday Afternoon at Scottville City Hall

[XLFD]

Prologue

At the April 5th Scottville City Commission meeting held in person at the Scottville Optimist Building, they announced the three candidates that were to be interviewed at a special meeting to be held this next Thursday, April 15th, after emerging from closed session to review four applications.  About an hour after the meeting adjourned, Commissioner Rob Alway, who also is the founder and head honcho at the Mason County Press, ran a story with material found on their applications.  

I had also wanted to look at these applications and resumes to further gauge the qualifications and particulars of the candidates before they came in for interviews this Thursday, so when the new Scottville FOIA Coordinator Carlos Alvarado checked his Emails early on Wednesday, he and Acting City Manager Matt Murphy found a public records request for them, I introduced it by noting:

"Since these records were immediately provided to the Mason County Press' chief editor during the closed session, I expect these to be either immediately provided by electronic means or be available for immediate inspection at the Scottville City Hall."

No response had came that day, so late that night, I emphasized the point of equal access to public records in another email, including Commissioner Rob Alway among the receivers:

"Gentlemen,  It's been over thirteen hours since I requested these records.  The records requested were freely given to the editor of the Mason County Press, another news agency, during the April 5th meeting.  He used that access to write a story relying on information gleaned from the applications and resumes of the three selected candidates that night and published before 9 PM.  This was less than two hours after he observed even more documents as a city commissioner. 

One could argue about the ethics behind Rob Alway's duality leading to a very real conflict of interest dilemma that makes him a poor example of both a politician and a journalist, but the fact remains I have requested immediate access to this same information, and the City has refused to send the records to me or allow me to come by the city hall and inspect them with an equality of access they have used to get that data to Mr. Alway.  This leads to an easy to make First and Fourteenth Amendment case if you decide not to allow me the same access you allowed for him.   In Times-Picayune Publ’g Co., Civ. A. No. 88-1325, 1988 U.S. Dist. it was noted: 

 

"“Discriminatory governmental action aimed at the communicative impact of expression is presumptively at odds with the First Amendment. Above all else, the First Amendment means that the government cannot restrict freedom of expression on the basis of its ideas, message or content.”  The court went on to state that the First Amendment protects, “at a minimum, a [particular reporter's] right of access to information made available to the public or made available generally to the press."

Here's a link (pkr2010.pdf (spj.org)) to a good legal article on access equity as regards the press and public bodies, especially those bodies that wish to discriminate against journalists because of their viewpoint.  My viewpoint is that the City of Scottville is extremely corrupt; with every violation of the US and State Constitution and your own charter, you're only further proving the point that you are.

  

Without further ado, please send me these applications and resumes by Email (or inspection at city hall) or assume that you have violated my First Amendment rights and accept that you will be exposing the City of Scottville to further legal liability in federal court."

After Thursday came and went without any reply, I sent back another letter looking for immediate release, reminding them that the City's removal of my content on their official Facebook site would lend itself to a nice two count case in federal court.  I also issued the more immediate threat of coming by his office in Ludington to pick them up on Friday morning if I didn't get the records or heading down to Scottville that afternoon.

Friday morning saw nothing come through the emails, so I headed down to the Alvarado Law Office to see what the issue was.  My second round of rapping at his exterior door summoned a gruff Mr. Alvarado himself letting me know that he had just prepared a response and sent it to me saying that it was being released and that I would need to go to Scottville for my copy.  I walked the six blocks back to my house at a leisurely pace, and was beaten home by my FOIA response by one minute.  The FOIA response.pdf does not indicate that there would be any charge for the simple request to inspect the applications.

Friday Afternoon Follies

Around two-ish, I travelled the eight miles to Scottville City Hall, not expecting any major issues like I have had at the last two commission meetings, but what I ran into reminded me of the dead parrot sketch from Monty Python, without me clutching a birdcage or parrot throughout.  

I entered city hall and approached the front desk.  If you haven't been in Scottville City Hall lately, you come through the front door and you enter a large cubicle with a desk and velvet rope preventing you from going into the better half of the anteroom.  Nobody was at the desk, but I could see in one of the desks beyond the City Treasurer Kathy Shafer.  I saw something on the front desk in a large envelope that looked like it could be my FOIA response.  I asked whether it was.

Treasurer Shafer looked a little bit nervous, as if she was finally meeting the person who accused her of embezzlement, understood she was guilty, but still had to do the job that was hers that day.  She said it was my response but presented me with one sheet of paper.  On the paper, was my name, a brief title of the request and that it amounted to ten pages, four brief sentences saying what they could bill me for, and a billing line saying that I owed them $16.50.  

Knowing that I had received a response that said I owed nothing for this response, I politely asked what exactly the $16.50 was for.  The nervous response was that it was for the copies.  I reminded her that I asked to inspect the records, they were non-exempt, and so I should owe for no copies; I asked again what the $16.50 charge was for.  She excused herself to make a phone call, and around this time City Clerk Kelse Lester came out from a door behind her and I noticed SPD Officer Katrina Skinner was behind me around the door tending to some other business.

Lester explained to me that the $16.50 pertained to the work they had to do to get the record for me.  I asked whether I could see the billing record that had Commissioner Alway or Riley Kelly from the local paper paying $16.50 just to look at the records; I had seen payroll, if Lester had gathered the records, this would be saying that it took her one hour to compile records that were in every city officials' hands on Monday.  Lester acceded that she was told to put the charge down and effectively inferred that it was needed to be paid before I could look at the records.

As I deconstructed her arguments effectively enough to get her to surrender the field of debate, Officer Skinner transitioned herself past the velvet rope and took over for the City.  Unlike the other two, she admitted there was a problem and was willing to talk about it.  While we were making some headway, she took a small break to field a phone call.  I could hear her explaining the situation. 

When she came back she seemed willing to forgo the bogus charges, but she wanted the paper back which had the $16.50 charge on it.  I wanted to keep it, but decided only to use it for leverage in order to get a look at the records I wanted.  We wound up doing a prisoner exchange of records. 

While I was looking through the records on a chair beyond the velvet rope and taking notes, Acting City Manager/Police Chief Matt Murphy (likely the guy on the other side of the line of Skinner's and/or Shafer's call) came in and joined the others in the office.  

After about ten minutes of looking through the applications, and feeling like the officials were massed in their small area ready to defend their turf from a foreign interloper, I took the ten pages back to the desk and told them I was done with my inspection.  Chief Murphy had the City's FOIA fee policy in one hand and I noticed he had the sheet showing the $16.50 charge in the other.  

Chief Murphy offered to give me the FOIA policy gratis, but I told him that I would be more interested in a copy of what was in his other hand.  Murphy, perhaps realizing that the $16.50 fee was a ludicrous charge without any rationale said he couldn't give me that page.  I offered him ten cents for it, which is the maximum charge for one copy that a public body can make.  He told me he wasn't going to give it to me.  

I challenged him by saying that it was by definition a public record and I was requesting a copy of it orally under the FOIA.  The funny thing is, Scottville FOIA policy allows this:

But the chief refused, had there not been witnesses there beyond normal city staff, there may have been a meltdown rather than just an imperative, controlling, statement saying effectively you're not getting this record, but you can get this other one.  After repeating my interest in the other one enough to buy a copy, he suggested that I needed to make a FOIA request to the FOIA Coordinator to get the record that shows Scottville officials tried to extract money from me without any reason.  

So unfortunately, I cannot show you the paper where they tried to charge me $16.50 for purchasing access to records that they freely gave other news outlets.  But I do have it on request, so if their new $190 per hour FOIA Coordinator Carlos Alvarado tries to block this public record showing an attempt at public extortion by Matt Murphy & friends, the citizens of Scottville know who to blame for all of this added cost-- when they could have shown nearly a dime for profit.

[Freedom Seeker]

Like deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, it seems, City of Scottville and its new attorney is the deer. Good exercise in persistence and standing up for the Rights of the Public to be equally afforded public information, X. It would seem Mr. Alvarado is probably learning a new facet of municipal law from you, where his expertise has been in immigration law and real estate law, it appears.

[Willy]

Amazing story X. One has to wonder what is going on in their corrupt brains. They are doing much damage to Scottvilles reputation. No longer are there clowns only in the band, now they're in control of City Hall.

[XLFD]

Nice adaptation of the welcoming sign and observation of the concentration of clowns in the city commission.  I may have to start referring to the governing body as Scottville City Clowncil as I did with Ludington for a time.  That would irk them two ways by effectively calling their commission a council and then misstating it as a clowncil. 

If I don't watch it, I'll get a cream pie in my face next time I go to a Scottville meeting.  Anybody got a seltzer bottle? 

[Willy]

Thanks. Is it true that Scottville will be getting a special vehicle to better represent the philosophy of the City Government. 

[XLFD]

Pictures don't lie, Willy.  Except Roger Clemens.

[Barney Reinberg]

The smartest thing The COL/COS could do is hire X as their FOIA dude.  

[Freedom Seeker]

I've thought the same thing, Barney, but wouldnt that be a conflict of interest then?  Except X is not making any money on his blog, like Alway is.  He would make an excellent city manager of either city.

[XLFD]

The problem is they wouldn't want me as their FOIA Coordinator.  They would not want to disclose certain records, they've showed this is the case, and I would have to tell them they had no legal exemption to claim. 

The corrupted city council/commission would then blame me for not doing the job correctly, from their perspective.  That would also hamper me with a city manager gig in either city.  I'm not politically-flexible enough to make a good city manager unless the city council's and citizen's agendas were similar.  That doesn't happen around here often enough.

Thanks for being supportive references though, Barney and Freedom.

[stump]

   I think the City of Scottville  has dug  such a deep hole that they can't find a ladder tall enough to get out. It seems that all involved  are following the leader whoever that is and it just keeps getting worse.  Thats what happens when  a coverup  spins out of control.