The Secret Police of Sheriff Kim Cole

[XLFD]

Back on December 10, 2012, the Ludington Torch sent a simple request to the Mason County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) asking to inspect or receive electronic records of their conflict of interest policy.  Such policy ideally would be on their website or easily accessible in a computer file or handbook at the MCSO.  But it is now five weeks later and I have contacted the sheriff's FOIA Coordinator, Mary Fulton, six times in writing regarding this simple request, and have yet to see it or be apprised of the arbitrary and capriciously stated fee of $5 that has been quoted to me without any declaration of what the $5 is for.  Nothing that the FOIA condones, that's for sure.

 

                   Kim Cole swearing to faithfully discharge the duties of sheriff according to the best of his ability in December

 

This period coincides with the ascension of Kim Cole to the Undersheriff and his early rebuff of a FOIA appeal, without yet having the authority to do so without being so designated, and then his assumption of the office of Sheriff on January First.  I have dealt with the MCSO before this and they have been a bit more responsive than they have been over these last two months.  But here is the story of this one FOIA request for the MCSO Conflict of Interest policy. 

 

To this I received by mail (for FOIAs I made during this summer, an E-mail response was used) asking for a 10 day extension, as per their ability to do so by the FOIA.  I received a response in the mail on Dec. 26, with a new FOIA response form within the time but they requested $5

 

 

The new form restricted me to only getting these records mailed to me and copied.  This was not part of the request, and as the public body, they have no such ability to restrict me from viewing the original records (which would have no exempt material). 

How wasteful can you get?  No wonder our local governments are asking for new taxes all the time.  I reminded them of my parameters, their duties, and my formal affidavit for the County agencies being drafted (since the County intelligentsia recently decided the City of Ludington affidavit was no longer valid for them) in my second E-mail:

True to my word, I sent her a copy of my affidavit, and notified her that Fabian had the original, and I expected the $5 FOIA sent to me without charge, and a request to find out what the charges were for, which was never clarified. 

 

This threat of a legal action is not empty; there have been a variety of FOIA violations by the sheriff's office and the prosecutor's office that I have accumulated over the last year.  Just one year ago, I prevailed over a FOIA appeal involving the prosecutor tried in front of Judge Cooper, getting the records and my court costs back (outside of a court order), including a revision of a public record by the prosecutor.  The prosecutor has bore a grudge, as seen in his FOIA replies (which shall be revealed shortly).  I sent a follow up the next week when I heard nothing:

 

This was just a reminder, I made another FOIA requesting crash reports of three Mason County motorcycle accidents before the new year, and they were totally ignored:

 

I had CC-ed the new sheriff, but got an out-of-office notice.  I got another 10 day extension a couple days later in the regular mail for the motorcycle accidents, with nothing about the conflict of interest request

 

 

Notice that I did CC the County Administrator in this last request, Mr. Knizacky has done responsible things in the past to correct oversights by County agents and himself.  But two business days later, there is still no reply. 

Kim Cole never ran for sheriff on the issues of transparency and respecting the rights of individuals, so I am not too surprised by the changes in policy that makes it takes at least five weeks and six letters of correspondence with only the two statutorily-mandated replies to see the MCSO's conflict of interest policy, in total neglect of the public's right to view such records. 

And why does the Sheriff's FOIA Coordinator assign an illegitimate $5 charge without any explanation over this period, to see a page or two of policy if it actually exists?  Would they charge $5 to anybody who asked to view their policies, and ignore a duly sworn and notarized affidavit of indigency?  Why are those hired to enforce the laws, supervised by the elected sheriff, violating the laws themselves?   It's another secret I guess.

 

 

[XLFD]

I would hate to give up on the education of the children, even if they have the disability of being related to some of our dysfunctional officials.  Oh, but they do like their hollow homilies and simplistic reasoning in their posts though. 

Tolerance and compassion, Aquaman, and maybe, just maybe, they won't go bad.