The Cover Up Cover-Up

[XLFD]

In this thread, Hiding Behind Signs 2, we found that the City Manager was all set to present a Power Point about FOIA Requests done by Ludington Torch citizen journalists.  Sounded interesting and wasteful, so we checked in on it by doing... an FOIA request. 

 

We received the Power Point without any notes, so we created our own commentary and presented it  from our viewpoint.  But we were still annoyed that some of the inter-office communications were withheld from us by the attorney-client privilege.  It seemed odd that such a privilege would be enacted in such a case, or whether each communication would be able to pass the 5 part test of such privileged communication.  After all, the City Attorney not only has a duty to the members of City Hall, they also have a duty to the public, who are the ones paying his salary (which was raised 70% last year by City Hallers, to the dismay of the public).   This differs City Attorneys from those who represent private clients.

 

We did an administrative appeal to the Ludington City Council at the last meeting, and it was denied after the City Manager and Attorney put their kibosh on it.  But it gets interesting here, because even though an A-C communication may have its message redacted (blacked-out), we never received the redacted messages.  We had made this point right after we found out what the verdict was, but was ignored until our first Circuit Court appeal was served.  On Friday, we received these 5 redacted 'privileged' E-mails in .pdf format.  But I go over each here:

 ----------------------------------

---------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------

 

Quite a bit of blacked out stuff for just an attorney-client privilege being invoked.  Is the date/time when an E-mail is sent subject to A-C privilege?  Are senders and receivers?  Subject lines?   

I envisioned a likely scenario of why Shay would cover-up material that obviously has nothing to do with the A-C privilege which makes perfect sense, and we will be sending out one more FOIA to check that out.  In the meantime, if you want to hazard a guess, do so in the comments.  However, we did also make a further request on this cryptic reply:

 

"Please explain the redactions, using section 13 of the FOIA given for your convenience here:  MCL 15.243 Exemptions  Thank you.

  

1)  The redacted times of when the E-mails were sent.

2)  The redacted subject lines of what the E-mails referred to

3)  The redacted senders and recipients that are found throughout the four E-mails

  

4)  In the first and third E-mail, Shay sends to the CA RMW and one other recipient that is redacted.  The attorney-client privilege may cover the Shay to CA RMW, but unless the other recipient is an attorney representing the legal interests of the City, that E-mail should be available non-redacted.  If it was another City employee/official or anyone else, it should be available.  You can't claim A-C privilege while sharing with other non-attorneys at the same time.

5)  Similarly, in the 2nd and 4th, the redacted sender and receiver parts clouds the issue.  Hopefully, you can explain it.

  

6)  As CA Dick Wilson said at the last CC meeting, any of the City of Ludington employees have the right to declare that privilege.  They also have the option of waiving that privilege.  In the name of open government, can you not waive that privilege here?  After all, we are talking about communications about a power point presentation on FOIA Requests, what would you possibly be covering up?

[XLFD]

A reduced question then:  Why would the City Manager intentionally cover up the times of the communications?

[Sweater Cows!]

Well, I have only skimmed the posts lately, but my guess is because they were planning in advance to throw you under the bus(or thought if they threw you that you would turn tail and run like many would), and now that you have shown you won't be intimidated they are covering their butts---well trying to)

[XLFD]

You're giving a general answer to a question of specifics, but I like your answer otherwise. 

I have tried Sherlock, let's try Socrates. 

If your boss could get a look at the private E-mails that you send out to others, why might you cover up the dates you sent some of them? 

[Willy]

He's just trying to prevent you from establishing a chronological order of transgressions againts you.

[Sohn Jhay]

The AC privilege would be viable if the blacked out name was of his own personal attorney.

[XLFD]

Viable?  I don't even think it could live outside the uterus if it was his own personal attorney blacked out.

 

If John Shay has his own personal attorney and that is the blacked out sender/recipient, what justifies the exemption of the times and that attorney's name?  Could it be that John Shay might be conversing with his own personal attorney during the time he is supposed to be working for the City?  Could be?

 

Any which way, Sohn Jhay, we got to ask why John Shay felt it was within the public's best interest to demand AC privilege to cover up recipients, times and banter about a FOIA request PPP.

[Willy]

Like I've said many times there is no attorney / client privilege when a government officials consults with a government  attorney about government business unless it concerns national security and classified information. It would be interesting to ask the City attorney on what grounds the City is claiming attorney /  client privilege. I do believe that would be a good question to also ask Shay, the Mayor and the City Council. Someone should be able to answer that.

[Sohn Jhay]

All I am saying is that an attorney / client privilege might be feasible if he was actually consulting his own attorney for some reason and he cc'd the city attorney.

[XLFD]

Sohn,

Let's presume Shay did cover up only the names of personal attorneys in the sender and receiver categories of the 5 E-mails.  I and my ally had no legal action against the City of Ludington or Mr. Shay at the point where they decided to make a Power Point Presentation on our FOIA requests. 

 

Do you think the invoking of the A-C privilege is in the public interest?  After all, we have what looks like a colossal waste of time by a public official on the public dime made in the production of a PPP using incomplete data.  A PPP that was never used, and whose use seems to have been based on whether an indigent young lady chose to accept Mayor Henderson's Certified invitation letter to attend the meeting.  

 

John Shay has a duty, even after invoking such a privilege, to let the public see who else was poised to belittle a Ludington citizen, and the times they communicated via E-mail, in this FOIA request.  And nothing allows the A-C privilege of the FOIA to redact this information, short of national security.    

[AQUAMAN]

There is no question of national, state, or local security involved, and everyone involved indeed knows that. Btw, CA Wilson did make a short and sweet statement at the last CC Mtg., to wit, " attorney-client privilege has been around for centuries, and can always be invoked by the client, and as such, there is no legal basis to revoke it now". Maybe that's not a direct quote, but, the camera coverage would show this is pretty much the emphasis on the matter from Wilson. In other words, he said nothing of significance at all, just made a broad brush stroke of the a-c rule that exists, and says it's ok to do it anytime you want to. I thought the statement to be that of a nilly-willy type personality. One that even Nixon would be proud of, and defend to the hilt. So, what can you expect from experts in cover-up tactics that do this everyday, it's their forte in life, and that's why they work for Ludington and Manistee.