Scottville Official Reads Speech at Public Meeting into the Public Record of the Public Body-- City Attorney Declares Written Speech is not a Public Record

[XLFD]

At the end of the August 2nd meeting of the Scottville City Clowncil, just after the misplaced period for public comment, where the agenda allows for 'council' members to comment, Commissioner/Clowncilor Rob Alway had a prepared statement ready that started off painting his fellow officials as saintly individuals who give all for their city.  I whispered over to my process server that the comment would soon devolve into ugly personal attacks against yours truly; I wasn't disappointed.   As noted in the meeting's recap, I sent a FOIA request out the next day asking for the prepared speech he read at the meeting.  

By the title, you might have surmised that I was not given that record.  City Attorney Carlos Alvarado, currently facing a lawsuit for claimed intentional violations of the Open Meetings Act (OMA), fielded a response for: "The prepared speech that Commissioner Rob Alway read at the end of the August 2nd meeting." by saying the following:

"A public record does not exist under the name given or by another name reasonably known by the FOIA Coordinator. The "speech" read by Commissioner Alway was a personal statement he did not shared (sic) with the Commission nor entered (sic) into the public record."

Let's be clear what happened.  At an official regular meeting of the Scottville Commission, the mayor asked for comments from commissioners, Commissioner Alway declared he had something to say, then read a statement from a piece of paper he had in front of him.  Like myself and my prepared comments, he followed along with what he had written, sharing his words with the six other commissioners, other officials, and the attending public.  No official, parliamentarian or not, moved to strike down the statement from the record.  

With that in mind, let's look at the definitions in FOIA law and see how they match with Attorney Alvarado's opinion.  In FOIA law a "writing" is any type of writing on most any type of writing medium, anything transcribed on paper is effectively a 'writing', but that's just a subset.  The prepared speech is a 'writing'.

FOIA defines "public record" as "a writing prepared, owned, used, in the possession of, or retained by a public body in the performance of an official function, from the time it is created."  Can it be effectively argued that the clowncil did not use this statement at an official meeting as propaganda for them and against others?  Can we argue that it wasn't possessed and prepared by at least one member of the public body known as the 'City of Scottville', and that it was effectively owned by that agency when they didn't strike it from the record?   

Consider, had Clowncilor Alway stated at the beginning of his statement that this was a personal observation (which he never did, it seemed as if he tried to encompass his feelings to that of the rest of the commission), any good chairman would have gaveled Alway down when his statement devolved into personal attacks that had no business being related during the official meeting.

It is clear that Clowncilor Alway doesn't want his vile public statement transmitted to the general public, possibly because it would show his unfitness to serve as a public official, possibly because the confirmed grifter couldn't get paid for sharing it with me through the FOIA process.  Rather than allow the city attorney to share his observations made loudly and proudly at a public meeting, he appears to make the attorney manufacture a very lame and unsupported alibi as to why it cannot be shared. 

Now the City of Scottville will have to handle another FOIA appeal for a public record they declare doesn't exist because it is not a public record even when it is a writing prepared, owned, used, in the possession of, AND retained by Clowncilor Alway and shared to admiring officials at a regular meeting, all who used it to give themselves haloes and their critics horns.  

[AQUAMAN]

Rob Alway appears to be getting more unscrupulous as time goes on. No decorum nor fitness for office nowadays, sad, and not becoming the quality of a good councilman at all, again, very sad. Also, very disgraceful for the great City of Scottville.

[XLFD]

Agreed.  It's very telling that every time they choose to address the multiple issues I bring up in front of the clowncil, each supported by evidence and the public record, they choose to avoid those issues and instead do two things:  praise themselves for totally unrelated issues and personally attack the messenger.  

This is classic Ludington City Hall behavior of ten years ago.  Look for the Chilean fee chaser to create his own version of the Workplace Safety Policy to introduce to the rubber stampers at the Optimist Hall.