Scottville's Sunshine Week Tantrum

[XLFD]

During Sunshine Week (this year, March 14th-March 20), one sees the media editorializing on the need for transparency in government by strengthening the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Open Meetings Act (OMA), and other tools citizens can use to figure out what in the world their governments are doing.  Similarly, you see at least lip service given to the same ideas by politicians who have spent the rest of the year in hiding and seem obliged to come out and curse the shadows they have made their living off of, then go back to their holes like a groundhog on February 2nd never to be thought of again until the next year.  

The officials of Scottville have determined that they will not fall into this Sunshine trap and instead they are burrowing deeper down into the darkness.  We have already reviewed their shameless attempt to subvert the OMA by not allowing the public to talk during a supposedly virtual 'open' meeting on Monday, March 15th.  Consider the equivalent of what they would have had to do at an in-person meeting to keep me from talking during both public comment periods, and how any reasonable person present would have reacted to their censorial actions had they did so. 

I've tried multiple times to receive a reason for why they violated my right to comment on Monday evening, I've also snuck in a few FOIA requests while doing so, to better understand their motivations, I received this E-mail from City Attorney Carlos Alvarado just yesterday:

"I am in receipt of your purported FOIA request below as well as the one you sent to the City yesterday. Please be advised that both requests will not be processed until they are addressed to the City FOIA Coordinator, as there is no individual in the city that meets the description provided in both requests. Your right to inspect the record or receive copies of the same, as per MCL 15.233 Section 3(1) makes this right contingent to the requester providing a written request addressed to the FOIA Coordinator. For your information, the FOIA Coordinator of the City of Scottville is the City Manager. That position is currently being served by the Chief of Police as Acting City Manager."

I have made several FOIA requests to Scottville over the last few months, they can't seem to figure out that when they try to unlawfully block totally non-exempt records from disclosure (as they did with their city manager efficiency investigation for over a month) it makes the curious even more curious as to why they would do that.  I have made it a habit to send requests to the E-mail addresses of the acting city manager and the police chief, who are the same person, just to be sure he gets it. 

There hasn't been an issue until these two FOIA requests, and I think it's because I made a typo, and these who officials apparently think it was an intentional typo, developed a severe case of butthurt, and in their tantrum that followed thought it was worthy of taking away my right to view public records (after taking my public comment rights away twice).  Here's what I sent the prior night, after sending a polite inquiry as to why I wasn't allowed to speak at the meeting, I backed the second with a FOIA request:

"Police Thief Murphy,

Could I please have an answer as to why I wasn't allowed to speak at tonight's meeting? I sent another polite E-mail to all of you crooked officials nearly an hour earlier and failed to get an answer. Should I wait for some lame excuse now, or after I file a complaint and summons?

As my FOIA request, please send me a video recording of tonight's meeting, or a link to where it's at if it is on the internet. Hope I didn't catch you enjoying some of the comp time you accumulated."

The 'purported' FOIA request I sent that day also mentioned Police Thief Murphy in the salutation portion, otherwise it was all business, looking for the last year's committee meeting's minutes and public notices.  As an attorney, Carlos Alvarado is often defending the wrong side, quoting a wrong interpretation of the laws, and totally ignoring other relevant sections of law.  It was evident when he tried to block my FOIA request regarding a car-pedestrian accident, it's evident when he tries to say I am not following the FOIA when he is misrepresenting that law to try and make Police Thief Murphy from doing his duties.  I responded:

"It's more than a 'purported' FOIA request, it is a FOIA request (read the rest of MCL 15.233(1)). The very last sentence of that section of law says: "An employee of a public body who receives a request for a public record shall promptly forward that request to the freedom of information act coordinator.".

I sent the FOIA request to the two E-mail addresses that Police Thief Murphy monitors, he is an employee of the City of Scottville who properly deserves the respect he gives to the laws applicable to his conduct. In my opinion, if an official can hold two titles at once, surely he can shoulder a third that is much more applicable than his other titles, given his criminal larcenous conduct.

You, however, are on record saying that the FOIA Coordinator will refuse to respond to a proper FOIA request because it is not sent to the FOIA Coordinator-- which it was. If you maintain your position of noncompliance with FOIA law, you will do so in violation of the law and expose yourself to an attorney grievance commission complaint, and the City of Scottville to further liability. Have Police Thief Murphy do his job as the Bad Acting City Manager Murphy and fulfill the request.

Thank you for not bothering me further unless you have FOIA responses, a question regarding the requests themselves, or some explanation as to why I was excluded from speaking at Monday night's meeting. I'm still waiting for that, and I'm not getting happier hearing nothing. Do you condone that lawless behavior too, Carlos?"

Attorney Court-loss Alvarado should also familiarize himself with the City of Scottville's FOIA policy, which states quite clearly: 

"In the event a written FOIA request is received by any employee of the City or member of the City Commission, a copy of the request shall be provided to the FOIA Coordinator on the same day it is received. All written requests for records pursuant to FOIA shall be processed by the FOIA Coordinator."

Which means that any employee of the city has a duty to immediately get any FOIA request to the FOIA Coordinator (who is Matt Murphy, regardless of whether you call him police chief, acting city manager, or corrupted piece of cow dung).  Yet the law according to Lawyer Court-loss Alvarado says:  

1)  both requests will not be processed until they are addressed to the City FOIA Coordinator they were, but they don't even need to be addressed to the FOIAC

2)  Your right to inspect the record or receive copies of the same, as per MCL 15.233 Section 3(1) makes this right contingent to the requester providing a written request addressed to the FOIA Coordinator  no, it doesn't, read the law you point to

3)  I am in receipt of your purported FOIA request nothing about it is purported

Three times this Sunshine Week Scottville's City Attrophey has advised or permitted the City of Scottville to:

1)  Delay disclosure of a mostly non-exempt police report for three more weeks, even though he has given no legally-recognized reason to deny this right

2)  Shut up at least one member of the public from exercising his right to speak at a public meeting twice, without offering a legally-recognized reason to deny this right

3)  Deny processing a proper FOIA request because someone used a capital 'T' rather than a capital 'C' in somebody's title, once again not offering a legally recognized reason to deny this right

Court-loss Alvarado is doing his best to not only get a nasty reputation for the city that he represents, but he's also making a stronger case to have the attorney general's office look into why he's advising Scottville officials to break Michigan law, not to mention he's insuring a potential federal case for me will succeed, should I try it.   

[Freedom Seeker]

As entertaining as it is, the brilliant play on the title of police chief, you are acting as judge and jury, imo, when formally requesting a FOIA and addressing him as "thief." It may be proven to be true, but how and who will prove the allegation? The Scottville Commission is not speaking against the alleged bad deeds. Carlos Alvarado is as equally entertaining by replying that no such person exists. I suggest that you play the game, and if your conscience will not allow you to respectfully call him Chief, that you address him as FOIA Coordinator, Matt Murphy. These are appalling alleged actions that you bring to light in Scottville, and if you have it in you to make them be transparent about these issues, may God grant you strength.

[XLFD]

I can't act as judge and jury if I'm not taking him in for trial.  However, back in the Sedition in Scottville article, I went through two months of payroll before and after Police Chief Murphy became Acting City Manager Murphy and those are compelling bits of evidence.   I showed that he earned too much money and had too much autonomy with either job title to qualify for comp time.  Yet he was getting credit for comp time and expending that comp time, which means he's getting money that he doesn't qualify to get and it's coming from the poor folks in Scottville.  He may as well be breaking into homes and taking silverware.

That makes him the saddest kind of thief in my book; he has had over a month to answer these irregularities, I've chatted with him point blank at meetings, he declines to comment back.  That makes him a city official that doesn't want to address his defrauding of the citizens, unworthy of any title of respect, he's a bit of a scoundrel-- who is running both the city and the police department.  His peers refuse to call him out, possibly because he has a lot of power under his wide belt, I will, and trust in God to protect me from the diabolical.  

[Freedom Seeker]

I agree you bring up some very compelling evidence on all counts. I will be sure to secure my locks so my silverware remains with me. I hope Matt Murphy, Carlos Alvarado, the treasurer and employees of the City of Scottvile and all others involved evaluate with truth and integrity these issues. Thanks again, X, for bring to light the darkness.

[Willy]

Does Alvarado realize how much he is damaging his reputation by playing this game of hide and seek with FOIA requests. I for one would never hire the man knowing he is supporting a local regime bent on secrecy and hiding information from the public. Then there's Chief Murphy who not only heads the police dept. but is also the City Manager and FOIA Coordinator. What a tangled web they have woven. And again I must bring up the most entangled and self serving person of them all and that is Alway who runs the local media while being entrenched in local politics. This is a shameful display of what happens when unchecked personalities are not being held to account by the community at large. 

One person has turned over the rock and revealed a string of conspiratorial acts committed by people who may have started out with good intentions but have ended up dragging the good name of a loved community through the mud by participating in cover ups. It's time for all involved to come clean and put this to rest. Take your lumps and straighten this out, for the sake of Scottville and it's good people.

X, I don't blame you for being upset because Scottville is your hometown. Even though I am not from Scottville I have fond memories of this once bustling town. It's just a shame nobody now in charge is acting like adults.