Kent County, Sheriff: Bad Service All Around

[XLFD]

Bad Customer Service

Recently in March, I made two requests for public records from the Kent County Sheriff's Department (KCSD).  The first was for an accident report involving a specific car and bicycle collision, the second was made afterwards regarding public records requests the KCSD had received and responded to, as explained in detail in this thread:  Sunshine Week Sunsetted by the Kent County Sheriff's Office.  Effectively, I was procedurally denied both records citing unlawful costs that they wanted to charge, and that they would not allow the public records to be released in the way I requested them (for inspection or electronic transmission).

I appealed both responses and just got back the results of the two appeals.  The first (Rotta Appeal 030315 Sheriff.pdf), as is common when a public body's governing board receives such appeals, they had their attorneys draft their upholding of the denial using the same flawed reasoning they used for the initial denial:

How convenient it would be for public bodies to contract with a third-party vendor in order to establish a prohibitive rate to charge for a simple request, which as noted, was for a UD-10 report, one sheet of paper that is mandatory for the KCSD to make, of which they wanted to charge $13 for.  The KCSD could pull such arbitrary and capricious fees out of their sheriff's hats all day to disallow non-profit groups from getting records that should be available readily to the public. 

They then state that the KCSD does not have the encryption technology to send a UD-10 via a .pdf file in an E-mail, while sending me, as they did before, their denials in .pdf files in an E-mail.  A claim is made that the information in a UD-10 is somehow unable to be sent by CJIS policy, but once again fail to say exactly what this policy is-- even though I asked them in this appeal to state it.  There is no such policy, and they have the technology-- the KCSD have hired liars, not lawyers.

The second appeal (Rotta Appeal 032315 Sheriff.pdf) is pretty much the same nonsense; I request to inspect the last year' FOIA requests and they cite a $650 fee for making copies of records I don't want, plus costs for labor to make these copies, they then tell me:

So to cover up the fact that they have been overcharging the public for public record requests, Kent County Sheriff Stelma and his trained stable of county attorneys attach prohibitive fees even if you wish to inspect the last year's FOIA requests, stating this needs to be paid even when you request inspection-- for they upheld the fees.  This really should leave a bad taste in the mouth of anybody who believes that public records are actually owned by the public, which FOIA and other state laws iterate, but leaving bad tastes in people's mouth is not new to Sheriff Stelma and his fellow obstructers at the county level. 

An incident of extremely putrid food being served back in 2012 in the Kent County Jail courtesy of Sheriff Stelma, Kent County, and their contractor, Aramark is part of a lawsuit recently filed in federal court.  It alleges some chicken tacos served at the jail led to hundreds of inmates getting sick.  Aramark has had similar problems in the past and has become the poster boy for poor food service at many locations they have received contracts from.  The ambivalence and apathy of the KCSD in releasing records as concerns this incident, probably led to the lawsuit being filed by people who couldn't get public records on what led to this monumental incident of food poisoning.

Bad Food Service 

The Grand Rapids Press noted this fact in the article below, updating the news of the lawsuit being filed in circuit court back in February.

KENT COUNTY, MI - After a serving of chicken tacos sickened about 250 inmates at Kent County Jail three years ago, a federal lawsuit has been filed against Kent County and Aramark Corp., the company that provided the meals and has come under fire while serving the state prison system.

Sixteen inmates filed a lawsuit in Kent County Circuit Court but it was moved to U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids on Tuesday, April 7, at the request of the defendants, records showed.

The lawsuit names Kent County, Sheriff Larry Stelma and Aramark Corp., Aramark Correctional Services LLC and Aramark Management LLC as defendants.

Inmates started complaining about the tacos shortly after lunch was served in mid-April 2012. Undersheriff Jon Hess, who would not comment about the pending litigation, told MLive and The Grand Rapids Press three years ago: "At that time, some of the inmates said it didn't smell right, didn't taste right, and they weren't going to eat it."

Related: Bad tacos at Kent County Jail lead to lawsuit claiming cruel and un...

Jail workers started making sandwiches, but for about a quarter of the jail population, it was too late. Soon, inmates were rushing to the toilet.

The sickened inmates suffered diarrhea, cramps, pain and suffering, attorney Jason Barrix wrote in the lawsuit.

He said the inmates may have long-term health consequences. Ararmark failed to handle food safely, use equipment properly to prevent food spoiling and failed to hire and train enough people to prevent food spoilage or contamination, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit said Stelma and Kent County "knew of the substantial risk of serious harm to the inmates of the Kent County Jail presented by improper food handling techniques, potentially resulting in a mass poisoning like that which occurred in mid-April 2012."

Barrix said that the county showed deliberate indifference to the risk of harm hiring Aramark to provide food "despite knowledge of those companies' history of mass food poisoning caused by inadequate training, inadequate staffing, inadequate equipment and willful indifference to the health of those the companies are charged with feeding in institutional settings."

Aramark, which serves the state Department of Corrections, has had problems after maggots were found near a food line, food shortages and improper contact between workers and prisoners.

Last month, some prisoners in Saginaw County were served food that had been in the trash. Food partially eaten by rodents was also served at another prison, records showed.

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2015/04/inmates_ro...

[Willy]

I guess your finding out that Ludington is not the only place where the FOIA is being abused. I bet that makes Shay and the Council happy to know they are not the only mini dictators in power. It's such a waste of the taxpayer's money when Government agencies try to avoid given citizens the information they are entitled to by hiring lawyers and FOIA specialists who greedily refrain from disseminating it. There is a pervasive attitude by many if not most of our public officials that we should not be allowed access to our records and files unless we pay thru the nose for it and even then they withhold that information for irrational reasons.

[XLFD]

I can guarantee you that any public body that contracts with attorneys to oversee their FOIA responses are trying to hide something.  The FOIA isn't that voluminous or vague (at least before this latest attempt at reform), and the core purpose behind it (allowing the public to look at public records) does not require a $200 an hour attorney to try to thwart the public from seeing a traffic accident report or any other non-exempt record.

[AQUAMAN]

Good points guys. Well, you know what law enforcement says about crooks: a) they always return to the scene of the crime; i.e. like repeated no-bid contracts, repeatedly overpaying city attorney invoices, repeatedly applying for grants with false pretenses and info., repeated refusals of taking oaths of office, etc., and b) always denying any guilt and hiding behind more lies and perjury even in court documents, c) when new and old laws alike are made to deter criminals, they will always find a way around the laws; like hiring attorneys for FOIA coordinators. I think the FOIA laws need even more revisions, and the first would be to limit coordinators to be in-house department employees that are the lowest paid. Hmmm. isn't that the law now?