Paul Spaniola is Dedicated, Efficient &... Oh Who am I Kidding

[XLFD]

At the Fourth of July Freedom Festival Parade I was handed out a leaflet by one of the Spaniola brigade campaign workers marching in the parade with Paul Spaniola, then one of the four candidates for the 51st Circuit Court judgeship.  The word 'Elect' was written in cursive and couched inside stars on both sides, followed by 'PAUL SPANIOLA CIRCUIT JUDGE' in plain blue lettering.  The center of the handout had a smiling picture of the candidate, and written purposefully to the side of this was "Paul Spaniola is Dedicated, Efficient & Experienced". 

As I look at that leaflet now, I can't help but chuckle at the irony of that phrase as I try once again to get some routine information from his prosecutor's office.  The first part of this story is told in this recent thread:  Can Mason County Afford Paul Spaniola as Circuit Court Judge?  The article tells the Iliad of my trying to get to look at a redacted police report in his possession, with a bunch of obstructive letters coming from his pen. 

With the request nearly three weeks made and presumably 'granted', I still have not seen these records, and thus begins this tale, the Odyssey of this Homeric quest.  First, if you are not acquainted with the above link read it now.  Once you are finished let's take a look at the Mason County's Prosecutor's Office (MCPO's Prosecutor Link) specifically what it says about their office hours and their personnel.  You will note, as shown below, that the MCPO is allegedly open Monday through Friday from 8 to 5.  You will also notice that besides Paul there are at least five other fellow workers in the prosecutor's office:

In the previous thread's comments I had noted another letter I had sent to Prosecutor Spaniola telling him I would be coming in to view the record on Thursday (9-18-2014), I left off with his E-mail to me made the afternoon before telling me that the six members of the MCPO could not accommodate me between the hours of 8 AM- 5 PM to inspect this report, it said:

Dear Mr. Rotta:

Due to scheduling issues we are unable to have a staff member available to facilitate your request to review this report on September 18. We stand ready to honor your request on another date. For your convenience, please call the prosecutors office at 845-7377 to schedule an appointment. Thank you.

Paul Spaniola

Prosecutor Spaniola doesn't apparently understand that I do not conduct my business with local officials over the phone, it allows them to say that they said something they didn't say, and allows them to attribute me saying something that I have never said.  Shady officials will do that, which is why they try to avoid E-mails when they are behaving unethically.  E-mails are effectively two-way certified letters making a written record of what was actually sent and received.  I responded the next morning with a responsive E-mail:

Alright, I'll come tomorrow (Friday). Suggest a time. I would like to get this done by the weekend.

You know you could save the taxpayers a bunch of time and money wasted on haggling, letter-dictating/mailing, and appointment-making by just having your clerk putting the report on top of your scanner/copier, scan in the files onto a .pdf file and send them in an E-mail. Even with my cheap scanner, I could do this in minutes.

Let me recant what's happened in this simple request on September 2 to inspect the MSP Police Report on William Marble. You sent me a mailed reply that told me you expected the cost would be around $40 to make copies of this report without telling me what the $40 entailed. You mailed another reply after I inquired about the charges and the initial reply, that told me the charge would be $34.13 for 1.5 hours of some clerk's time, and intimated that if I needed any copies that it would be more.

I don't want copies; I want to inspect what you already have on file, which is an already redacted copy of the MSP Report, scan and make a .pdf file on it. There are no lawful FOIA fees because you have consistently not told me what the unreasonably high costs to your public body is for fulfilling this very simple request. In your original reply, you had not told me there was any exempt material on the report.

You have told me there is a cost for "research, retrieved, collating, and assembly" on your follow-up, but since I am asking only for inspecting an existing copy of non-exempt records the only one that could possibly make sense is the "retrieved" for labor costs. I don't see how any organized office could justify 1.5 hours for "retrieved-ing" this report that came in earlier this year. Would you charge your clients for 1.5 hours of attorney time to locate a recently-made record in your office? If your clerks are this incompetent, you should terminate their employment.

You have now refused to allow me to inspect it at any point on this day contrary to the FOIA which says you have a duty to allow me to look at public records during usual business hours (MCL 15.233(3)). It is more than two weeks that I have made the request for something that could have been fulfilled in fifteen minutes time at a leisurely pace.

Maybe I should show you some of the .pdf files I have received from the Ludington FOIA Coordinator Susan Sniegowski (and former prosecutor, and your judicial opponent) for more complex FOIAs than this for no additional charge and without the pettifoggery you have consistently displayed in fulfilling your duties to be transparent to the public. She realizes what the public body can charge for and what they cannot charge for. I am sending a copy of this correspondence to her so she can get a good laugh about it.

Dedicated, efficient and experienced Paul Spaniola could not apparently get through a cognitive block he had; that by him not providing 'granted' public records during usual business hours of his public body he was in violation of FOIA, not to mention the violation of FOIA and ethics laws by him trying to get FOIA fees he was not legally entitled to.  But he sent another E-mail in response by the day's end:

"Mr. Rotta:

I'm very sorry but the lowest paid person in my office is out of the office today, tomorrow, and will not return until Monday. Moreover his schedule is already booked until 4:00 Monday afternoon. So the first opportunity for you to review the materials is then, Monday September 22 at 4:00. If that is not convenient for you, the next opportunity is Tuesday, September 23 at 1:00, as this staff person is already scheduled for the morning. If neither of these dates meets with your schedule, kindly suggest others that we could agree upon. Unfortunately court scheduled matters take priority in our scheduling. My staff and I are trying our absolute hardest to provide a time to you as quickly as possible. I appreciate your understanding.

Paul Spaniola"

Experienced and dedicated Paul Spaniola apparently doesn't read the lawbooks, if he did he would find section 4(3) of the FOIA says:  "a public body may not charge more than the hourly wage of the lowest paid public body employee capable of retrieving the information necessary to comply with a request under this act."  Nowhere does it say the lowest paid worker actually has to do the work.  Even a first grader could hand me the report and make sure that I hand it back when I'm through inspecting and scanning it.  He thinks I need to schedule an appointment, the law says (it will be noted) that I should be able to inspect the records during the public body's usual business hours.

I kept the next response relatively simple and to the point that I wanted the records prior to the weekend; it was sent Thursday night:

I'll see you tomorrow, probably early, but maybe late. If you don't have the record available during your usual business hours and don't allow me the ability to scan the record tomorrow (a copy of a MSP Police report), I'll start preparing the summons and complaint over the weekend for this denied FOIA request (as per MCL 15.235(7)(b).

You are always welcome to have your clerk or others scan the report and send it in a .pdf to this E-mail address. Wouldn't that be so easy and so convenient for both of us? And you wouldn't even have to charge an unlawful fee for doing so while freeing up your clerks to do other duties after this five minute task. Among one of your (and their) chief duties is providing full and complete information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts of those who represent the people as public officials and public employees to the citizenry who have a right to inspect and make copies of public records (MCL 15.231 and MCL 15.233) .

Since in the course of your four communiques to me you still have not specifically identified the nature of the unreasonably high costs to your office posed by this simple request, I am leaving my checkbook home tomorrow and expect a free inspection as per MCL 15.234(3). Thanks for your expected cooperation when I arrive. And just in case I come up missing, I send a copy once again to Susan.

Dedicated, efficient Paul Spaniola did not reply by early next morning to dissuade me from coming and inspecting the public record.  I waited until after the lunch hour at 1:15 in the afternoon, and went to his office and found this note on the window which serves as the public contact for people visiting the MCPO:

So, the office that advertises itself as open between 8-5 every weekday apparently is advertising itself falsely.  But amusingly, it also was falsely advertising about its pad, because there was no notepad, paper, or writing implement below this, as seen on the next photo taken around 1:20 PM a little further back:

For the next hour plus, I went over to the library and did some research about the shifty deal being done to the Eastlake Estates in Manistee County by our City's law firm representing a shifty client from Troy, Michigan.  I got back shortly after 2:30 to the same drawn curtain, but now there was a legal pad and pen below the sign, signifying someone had been around.  But after ringing the bell and getting no answer, I took a picture with my phone as a time stamp:

I then stayed around until 2:40 PM, but dedicated, efficient and experienced Paul Spaniola and his five similarly attributed partners all failed to show up.  I left not surprised, however, I left him a note telling him that I was going to make a formal complaint to the County Administrator of his office's neglect of duty to the public.  What a ridiculous way to run a prosecutor's office; you should presume that the circuit court under his purview would be likewise as dysfunctional.

[Willy]

What I find odd is that Spaniola balks about giving out public information and requires one of his office's employees to be there to watch you as you revue the file but he thinks that displaying information a visitor to his office would write down on that pad should be ok for the World to see. Who would leave information about themselves or their reasons for visiting the Prosecuter on a pad exposed to public scrutiny. If this is the way he runs his office then God help the Court office if he is elected. The problem with public employees such as Spaniola is they deem themselves above following protocol but demand that everyone else fall in line and do as they are told.

[XLFD]

Thanks for reminding me that when I got there the first time that on display, pushed underneath the window (you can see it in the middle picture caught in the mini-blinds) was a court filing by Attorney Mark Otto on behalf of his client.  I was able to read the full document (just one page); I could have just picked it up and ran with it if I had the inclination.  So much for the security of public records in his office. 

My own short note to him was pushed further in, but was still available to anyone.  Your question about who would leave their own personal message complete with information deemed exempt by FOIA (personal phone number) to the prosecutor available to the world and especially all those accused of crimes that visit the prosecutor's office is a great one.

[XLFD]

I posted the Spaniola flyer I referenced earlier in the thred head, andprovide another piece of Paul Spaniola's flyer, which appears less than factual when the facts of this FOIA foiasco is applied:

 

[Johnny]

This has to be one of your silliest posts yet, which is saying a lot.  With your reputation within the city, why would anyone want to give the big bad mr tommy rotta any sort of time?  Also, because his office was closed for one meeting you are going to pick apart that?  So can his office staff not have meetings?  He has the most experience by far.  Lets be honest, the reason you don't like him comes down to the Marble shooting.  Because you and all of your law experience didn't agree with the outcome, you base your opinion on that.  So let me get the Marble shooting straight, Troopers are at a residence investigating, a guy comes out of the back room and points at gun at troopers in full uniform.  So the trooper pulls out his gun and fire one round and drops Marble.  Attorney Rotta disagrees with that outcome.  Tommy wanted the trooper to yell at Marble to drop the gun when he has it pointed at him at point blank range.  That makes sense....if someone is on top of me punching me, I am going to tell them to stop punching me before I react.  

You are also upset because of how long it took him to get back to you?  You don't think he has more important things to deal with at work and in his life than getting a hold of the biggest baddest citizen in Ludington MR TOM ROTTA?  We all know that you feel that's you, but lets be honest.....you just have nothing better to do with your life.

[Willy]

Johnny

"With your reputation within the city, why would anyone want to give the big bad mr tommy rotta any sort of time?"

So what your saying is that local officials are deliberately breaking the FOIA laws, being vindictive, ignoring questions put to them about their job performance, ignoring questions regarding their conduct and in general refusing to be transparent, honest, open and timely about the information the citizens have entrusted them with. Do you think if those in charge of our information would obey the law, be forthright, honest and open there would be no conflict with the citizens they are paid to serve? Local officials created this problem with exactly the attitude you have described.

[XLFD]

If I had a lawful duty to provide Prosecutor Spaniola with paperwork he requested, Johnny, I would do so without playing games to avoid doing so and without asking for money I wasn't legally entitled to.  He has the duty to provide me the ability to inspect these documents, as per my right or any other citizen's right to. 

He has no power to charge me for money he is not legally entitled to, asking for money in that situation is public extortion.  If I were to charge the prosecutor for the time it spent me to follow up on this FOIA request (the various replies since, the one and a half hours I was inconvenienced by on Friday), you would think of me as even sillier wouldn't you?  But he has charged me for an hour and a half of a prosecutor clerk's salary just to retrieve a police report on a recent file.  And then is not allowing me to come by during normal business hours to look at the records.  By the FOIA, I should have got my granted FOIA Request nearly two weeks ago, but instead I ask to view it by the weekend and he sidesteps my attempts as if I am a landlord looking for rent from a dodgy tenant on Thursday and Friday.

Each time I have offered him the easy task of scanning the 70 pages to an electronic file and sending it to my E-mail address.  This is within his capability, and with a quality copier/scanner his clerk should be able to unstaple the redacted report (if applicable), put it in the scanner feed and set it to make a .pdf, then send it out on an E-mail immediately afterward.  How much more efficient would that have been, Johnny?

Instead, it looks as if I will have to bother the County Administrator and the 51st Circuit Court to get the judicial candidate to perform the duties of his job-- again.  I have already took Paul to court before for FOIA denials and prevailed in my action back in 2012.  At the same time, Paul was berated by Judge Cooper for a libelous memo he sent to the MSP in Hart about bad, old me.  This was two years before the Marble incident, where Prosecutor Spaniola listened to the audiotape and went against what thousands of people have heard-- that the gunshot went off before any call to drop the gun occurred. 

With your scenario, Johnny, where:  "a guy comes out of the back room and points at (sic) gun at troopers in full uniform.  So the trooper pulls out his gun and fire (sic) one round and drops Marble." it just doesn't have a foothold in reality.  If Bill Marble was pointing a gun at troopers, their first reaction would not to be to draw and fire if they thought Marble had intent to shoot them.  That line of response would only get them killed.

Nancy Marble sounds as if she said that "There's a gun pointed at the door, Bill.", which makes one think that Trooper James Luttrull had his gun drawn and readied.  Luttrull may have been more quick on the trigger due to the recent Butterfield incident 4 months earlier and shot on sight of the gun, if the official story is to be believed on that part. 

One would be wise to question the official report, since facts have already been misrepresented to absolve the trooper of any blame.  Bill Marble deserves to have those among the living defend his good name, since the rash action of this trooper has forever left him to be 'the drunkard that pointed his gun menacingly at two state troopers' when he was just a man guiltless of any crime shot dead in his home by a trooper that broke a couple of significant laws before he stepped foot into Marble's home.

[XLFD]

Yesterday, I was finally able to fulfill the quest for these records.  Paul had sent me an E-mail on Monday afternoon:

Dear Mr. Rotta: 

I must apologize for the fact that the meeting that my staff was attending ran longer than they anticipated last Friday afternoon.  I was out of town attending a funeral for a family member and learned of this upon my return to the office this morning.  If you would like to review the report on the Marble shooting this afternoon at 4:00 we are ready to accommodate you.  If this time is not suitable to you and you wish to review it on Tuesday afternoon at 1:00, we will be ready to accommodate you at that time.  If neither of those times are suitable, please call my office at 845-7377 to schedule another time. 

Paul Spaniola

The 4:00 PM time was untenable for me, so I decided to show up for the next day at 1:00 PM to see whether I could get what I had asked for three weeks earlier, and what terms I would have to follow, I had left my scanner at home due to its bulk and what Prosecutor Paul had said about not allowing me to use it. 

After announcing myself, I had about five minutes wait before I met Asst Prosecutor John Middlebrook who took me over to the Jury Room to look at the records.  After glancing at a couple and realizing I would want copies, I asked him whether the copy charge listed on the sheet he provided (basically 2.25 cents per copy, a good rate and closer to the 'incremental cost' the FOIA insists on for copies) was accurate, and asked for copies. 

It took him about 15 minutes to go back and make copies, but when he came back, he looked at the 'labor charge' that the prosecutor had put on the reply and crossed it out.  So for the 90 copies I spent $2.17, much better than the $34 I was quoted.  John Middlebrook was a very reasonable individual and although I hope that Spaniola loses the circuit court judgeship race, if he wins I hope someone reasonable like John gets Paul's old job. 

The report has been scanned and is being scrutinized, I will report on findings later in the year.  Before that, if anyone wants a copy of the full MSP report on the Bill Marble shooting, I'm willing to sell it for $2.