Editorial from the Idaho Press-Tribune

By Scott McIntosh

It’s been a bad couple of weeks for public officials here in the 2C. The city of Middleton has been going through some rough patches with some developers over what the developers say are unfair and at least inconsistent applications of codes and ordinances. Then, last Sunday, we documented in previously unreported detail the specific accusations against Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donahue, which included using taxpayer-paid employees to do errands for the K. Donahue Foundation, which runs a very worthy effort, the Man Up Crusade.

We consider ourselves advocates for the taxpayers. We represent the people, as we keep an eye on what the government is doing. That’s the essence of watchdog journalism. And Middleton Mayor Darin Taylor is the government. Sheriff Kieran Donahue is the government.

Don’t you want to know why Taylor cut a check of $24,000 in taxpayer money to Coleman Homes? Should we just place our trust in Taylor and accept that it must be a wise decision?

Don’t you want to know that Donahue had taxpayer-funded employees making copies of CD’s and picking up dry cleaning and arranging flights to Oklahoma for a rodeo for Donahue? And about that $200 change order — was that taxpayer money?

We still don’t know. That’s because Taylor and Donahue did not comment on these facts for our stories, despite our repeated attempts.

And that’s a shame, because they have a duty and a responsibility as elected officers and caretakers of the public trust and public money to answer to the public, which means us, “the media,” who are asking the questions on behalf of the taxpayers.

It’s not a witch hunt. It’s not trying to get someone out of office. We’re not “picking on” anyone. It’s an attempt to bring accountability to the government.

To me, there are still a lot of unanswered questions that the public has a right to know.

For example, are county employees still doing work for the Man Up Crusade while being paid by taxpayer dollars?

It’s not about the Man Up Crusade. The Man Up Crusade is a terrific and worthy cause. People should donate money to the cause and people should volunteer to do things like pick up dry cleaning, burn CD’s and book flights to Oklahoma for rodeos. But should employees of the sheriff’s department do that work on the taxpayer dime? Is that an appropriate use of tax dollars?
I reserve judgment. But I would like to hear an explanation or a justification. That’s what our reporter Ruth Brown was hoping to get from Donahue when she called him multiple times. But he didn’t respond.

You see, that’s part of what we do, too. We get both sides. We present facts to our readers and then we let all sides have their say to explain the situation, to persuade, to convince, so that you, the reader, can make up your own mind. After hearing an explanation from Donahue, you may be persuaded that what he’s doing is good and right.

Unfortunately, when someone clams up and hides from the media, their side never gets told. It’s unfortunate, but it’s also an abdication of the responsibility of a public official, who must answer to the public, to the taxpayers, to the people who elected them.

Taxpayers have a right to know, and elected officials who get a paycheck from tax dollars have a duty to respond to a reporter’s questions.

So just a warning to public officials: When the caller ID says it’s the Idaho Press-Tribune, pick up the phone. It’s part of your job.

Editorial from the Idaho Press-Tribune

From The Spokesman-Review

By Betsy Z. Russell

BOISE – An Idaho 4th District judge has ordered a Florida dental services contractor to disclose nearly 100 pages from its successful bid for an Idaho Medicaid contract that the company had claimed was exempt from public disclosure as trade secrets.

The order came in a lawsuit filed by Blue Cross, which had the state contract but lost out to Florida-based MCNA Dental, which has been winning similar contracts around the country.

Blue Cross contended that the Florida firm claimed much of its bid consisted of trade secrets – preventing Blue Cross from reviewing it to decide whether to challenge the bid award.

Judge Samuel Hoagland wrote, “The court finds that much of MCNA’s redacted information was previously disclosed publicly and was freely available on its own website, on various other state websites, and by simple Google searches.” Information that has been publicly disclosed, he wrote, “cannot now be claimed as a trade secret. If the information has been made public, then by definition it cannot and is not a trade secret.”

Hoagland wrote that for a public record to be exempt from disclosure under the trade secrets exemption, the party claiming the exemption must demonstrate two things: That the information has independent economic value from being kept secret; and that reasonable means have been taken to keep that information secret.

“MCNA asserts that the balancing act in this case is between the importance of keeping the proprietary information protected and Blue Cross’ need for information,” the judge wrote. But the Idaho Public Record Act, he wrote, “stands for the proposition that the balancing act is between governmental transparency and individual protection of trade secrets.” The reason why someone wants the records is irrelevant, he wrote, citing a 2014 Idaho Supreme Court decision, Wade vs. Taylor.

Under Idaho law, “All public records are open unless expressly provided otherwise by statute,” the judge wrote. “Therefore, we narrowly construe exemptions to the disclosure exemption.”

In his 33-page decision, the judge meticulously went through individual page numbers from the bid and determined whether the information redacted was appropriate or not. He found that roughly 250 pages, plus eight attachments, were appropriately redacted from the MCNA bid. But nearly 100 other pages weren’t, he ruled.

MCNA argued in court that Blue Cross was just after its trade secrets for competitive reasons, and as the third-place finisher in the bid process, likely couldn’t successfully challenge the bid. The contract award, which was supposed to take effect Sept. 2, was put on hold by the lawsuit; Blue Cross and the state agreed to extend their existing contract until it was resolved.

Blue Cross also challenged redactions by the second-place bidder, Liberty Dental Plan of Nevada, but the judge ruled that those were appropriate under the Idaho Public Records Act.

MCNA’s original submission redacted all or part of 507 of the 709 pages in its bid proposal and attachments. Blue Cross redacted only a few pages. After Blue Cross protested to the state, state officials asked the bidders to rethink their redactions, and MCNA reduced them, but they remained substantial.

“The major argument that MCNA advances is that if a competitor was to see the bid in its entirety, then the competitor would have an advantage in future bids,” Hoagland wrote in his ruling. But he said MCNA enjoyed that advantage itself in the Idaho bid process. “MCNA further argues that businesses will be disinclined to come to do business in Idaho if such trade secrets were not protected. The court is not persuaded. First, it didn’t stop MCNA. Second, these are policy arguments for the Legislature. … Third, as seen here, true trade secrets are protected, but information that is not a trade secret is not protected.”

“If a company wants to engage in public contracting,” the judge wrote, “it must follow our Public Records Act, be transparent in its dealings, and recognize the public’s right to know, even if the public includes a competitor.”

There’s little case law testing the limits of Idaho’s trade secrets exemption from the Idaho Public Records Act, but there is for the Idaho Trade Secrets Act, which has nearly identical wording.

From The Spokesman-Review

From the Idaho Mountain Express

Federal communications could be made public over proposed shipment to INL

by Madelyn Beck

A U.S. district judge said he wants to review records of communications within the U.S. Department of Energy so he can decide whether to turn them over to former Gov. Cecil Andrus, who said he suspects the department wants to keep secret its plans to ship commercial nuclear waste to Idaho.

Andrus filed a lawsuit against the DOE in October to force it to comply with the Freedom of Information Act and publicly share information relating to proposed waste shipments to the Idaho National Laboratory, east of Arco.

On Monday, Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled that the DOE must hand over the documents to him within a week.

Andrus filed the FOIA request for the documents more than a year ago, but said in an interview that what he got back after six months was largely redacted, or blacked out. He said it was another example of DOE’s “institutional arrogance” and that the department “thinks they know more than us and they’ll do what they please.”

A spokeswoman for the DOE at INL said the lab declined to comment at this time due to the ongoing litigation.

The DOE has violated a 1995 agreement between the state of Idaho and the federal government by not meeting deadlines to remove radioactive clothes and materials and to process 900,000 gallons of liquid, radioactive nuclear waste stored in three tanks. Because of the violations, DOE requires a waiver from state Attorney General Lawrence Wasden to bring in any more waste.

Wasden has said he will not allow the shipments until he knows the DOE has a way to solidify the liquid waste and safely store it, which the department was required to do by 2012 under the original agreement. The plant built to solidify the liquid waste continues to have glitches and delays, putting into question its ability to complete the task.

According to various media sources, nuclear waste storage tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in eastern Washington have been leaking radioactive sludge into surrounding soil. The leaks are blamed for sickening 11 workers.

Andrus said the tanks at INL are made of a different material than those in Hanford, but that the contents are still liquid and the area is prone to seismic activity. That, he said, could spell disaster for any area farm or household that uses water from the aquifer, which underlies the storage site.

“Once those tanks start to leak, it gets into the underground area,” he said. “That’s a total, unthinkable, unacceptable disaster just waiting to happen.”

Idaho Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis and Rep. Jeff Thompson, both R-Idaho Falls, have fought with Wasden about prohibiting shipment of the spent commercial fuel, which contains “high burnup” fuel, a type that is used longer and comes out hotter. Activists contend that that type of fuel is building up at nuclear plants around the country and poses unacceptable risks, but the lawmakers argue that finding out how best to deal with that fuel should be a matter of priority for national security.

Todd Dvorak, a spokesman for the attorney general, said Wasden’s stance on staving off the spent fuel shipment remains the same. When asked whether his decisions may change if the DOE documents are released, Dvorak said, “We really don’t get into hypotheticals. Certainly we’d be curious to see them, but the fact remains that there’s a breach in the agreement and that’s something we need to see fixed.”

Dvorak did note that over the past year, communication has increased between the Attorney General’s Office and the DOE.

Andrus’ attorney, Laird Lucus, said, “In this day and age, government is supposed to be open, not secret. They’re not supposed to be playing hide the ball. It really looks like this agency is playing games.”

From the Idaho Mountain Express

From the Idaho Statesman

BY KATY MOELLER

There are searches for driving records, to learn about whom you’re going on that date with, to find out about that surprise ticket.

Idaho’s online collection of court records gets about 200,000 hits each day, officials with the Idaho Supreme Court say.

With a few keystrokes, the Idaho Repository provides around-the-clock public access to information on civil and criminal cases in all 44 counties.

But there are things it doesn’t do — you can’t actually see a court file, for example, just the list of filings in a case. The current system was last updated in the late 1990s and is on life support.

So early next month, Ada County residents will see a change. Ada will be the second county to try out a new system called Odyssey, developed by a Texas company called Tyler Technologies.

Idaho’s multiyear conversion began last summer in Twin Falls County, and officials have been smoothing out the kinks over the past year. Ada County’s February launch was delayed a couple of times but state officials are confident in the current date to go live: Aug. 8.

Q: So how will I search the court system?

The new public portal is at a new website: mycourts.idaho.gov. (If you go there now, you can see how the system works for Twin Falls cases.)

But the repository won’t vanish overnight. It will still be needed for comprehensive, statewide records searches until all 44 counties transition. Be prepared to use both the new and old systems until the end of 2018.

After Ada County, 10 counties in the 4th and 5th judicial districts will launch on April 3, 2017: Blaine, Boise, Camas, Cassia, Elmore, Gooding, Jerome, Lincoln, Minidoka and Valley. Dates are being finalized for the remaining counties.

Q: Will I be able to view court documents from my computer?

One of the big goals of the new system is to go as paperless as possible. Within a couple of years, court filings across the state will be largely digital.

But people directly involved in the court system — judges, prosecutors, public defenders, health and welfare officials, law enforcement and private attorneys — will get online access to court documents before the general public.

“We try to dispel the myth that this is a fully paperless system. We recognize that there is a need for paper,” said Kevin Iwersen, chief information officer for Idaho’s court system. “When a defendant walks out of court and there’s an order or a hearing date, we want them to have that in hand.”

Concerns about protecting sensitive information, such as Social Security numbers, are behind the delay in granting the public broader access. State officials hope to let the public pull up court documents by the end of 2018.

“To me, that’s the whole beauty of the system — to be able to access documents electronically,” said former Idaho Supreme Court Justice Linda Copple Trout, now interim administrative director of the court system. “Until we get to a level of confidence that we’re not inadvertently disclosing info that should not be disclosed, we’re going to go slowly.”

Federal court documents have been available online for years. States have been slower to provide that kind of access, though Alabama and Utah both allow the public to view documents.

“Typically there is a fee associated with it,” Iwersen said. “That provides some level of control that those accessing it have a legitimate need.”

Iwersen said Idaho is going to follow the federal model but the court technology committee wants a better understanding of the system, particularly for criminal files.

Q: How will I get court files then?

You’ll still be able to pull them up at the courthouse in Boise — but you’ll be looking at digital files on a kiosk rather than stacks of paper in a manila folder.

Kiosks will be on the tablet that’s between the clerk’s office counters and in the document reading rooms, Iwersen said. You’ll be able to print documents off for a yet-unknown fee — currently, Ada County charges $1 per page for copies.

And what if you want to email the digital files or copy them onto a thumb drive? That won’t be permitted at first but state officials will look at making that an option, Iwersen said.

The Ada County Courthouse handles about a half-million paper files at any given time but is moving as fast as possible to go paperless, Chief Deputy Clerk Phil McGrane said Monday.

All Ada County land records were digitized three to four years ago, he said.

There’s an ongoing effort to scan all court files that date back to 1995, and McGrane expects that to be completed by 2021. After the Odyssey launch, most new cases will be filed digitally.

Q: What has this cost?

The Legislature allocated $21.5 million over five years for the court’s technology plan, which includes the Odyssey launch, Iwersen said.

The Supreme Court’s technology committee, chaired by Justice Roger Burdick, chose Tyler Technologies from a field of three applicants after issuing a request for proposals for new court management systems. Tyler offered the “most capable system” and submitted the lowest bid, Iwersen said.

Idaho is one of about a dozen states, including North Dakota and New Mexico, that have opted to use the Odyssey court management system. Oregon just finished its rollout of Odyssey, and Washington state is phasing it in now (for its superior, or district, courts only). That the three Northwest states are using the same system could make it easier to share information.

“We’ve had preliminary discussions about an exchange between the three states,” Iwersen said.

Q: What do people in Twin Falls County think?

The new system isn’t perfect, but it’s already better than what users there started with a year ago, they say. Folks in Twin Falls have recommended changes to make it more user-friendly, and there was an upgrade last week.

“It’s certainly been a challenge,” Twin Falls County Prosecutor Grant Loebs said. “We really hope that we are no longer volunteered to be guinea pigs.”

One of Loebs’ biggest beefs was lack of online access to court files. It was only earlier this month that his office gained that ability. And for some time, court motions had no details about who filed them or their purpose.

He said state IT officials are working to help his office gain access to financial records so they can track restitution payments.

Loebs’ staff has found the new system cumbersome because of the format, which requires a lot more clicking and opening things. (The fix for that is coming soon, Iwersen said.) Filing complaints electronically is more time-consuming than expected, he said.

Brooke Redmond, a litigator at Wright Brothers Law Office in Twin Falls, said court staff and others have been helpful when she’s had questions or problems.

“There’s been growing pains and hiccups on my end and theirs but it sure is nice to email a filing, as opposed to making sure you get it to the courthouse by 4:30 or 5,” Redmond said.

She said she was nervous when she heard Twin Falls County was going to be the pilot. She envisioned something “catastrophic,” like files getting lost in the cloud.

“I haven’t experienced anything or heard anything like that,” she said “I’ve been really impressed with the transition.”

Each file is backed up in two secure locations, and state officials are looking at a third possible backup, Iwersen said.

Q: What about judges?

Judge Richard Bevan is the administrative judge for the 5th Judicial District, of which Twin Falls County is a part. He estimates he’s probably had only five paper court files on the bench since last year.

“Those were last minute add-ons, or where the file was so massive that it didn’t scan,” Bevan said.

He’s become comfortable with the software Idaho judges are now using to do their work in Odyssey, Judge’s Edition. He uses his laptop in chambers and a PC setup in the courtroom. Staff loads the machines with cases, so if the Internet is down he still has the files he needs.

He rarely writes on a legal pad now. Instead he uses Word, then pastes things into Judge’s Edition.

“For external users, there have been a lot of headaches and a lot of grumbling. For me, as a judge, I like it a lot,” Bevan said. “I can find things with the stroke of a key. I can just find it instantly, and it’s there on the screen in front of me. I’m a fan, for what it’s worth.”

He said he has heard some magistrate judges say that filling out forms in the system isn’t yet as quick as doing it by hand.

Q: Have any lessons been learned for Ada’s transition?

For the first six months of the Twin Falls County launch, the court accepted both digital and paper filings. That proved burdensome.

“It was difficult on the deputy clerks to maintain two systems,” Copple Trout said.

So they’re not going to do that in Ada County. Starting on Aug. 8, prosecutors will file criminal complaints on paper but all subsequent filings (affidavits, motions, orders) must be done electronically.

For civil cases and other filings, e-file will be optional starting the first month after the launch and will be mandatory two months after launch.

Attorneys have been made aware, Iwersen said.

“We’re doing training with the bar association,” he said. “A letter was just sent to the entire state bar.”

From the Idaho Mountain Express

by Andy Kerstetter

In response to a lawsuit filed by a group of citizens in June, a judge has ordered the Blaine County School District to contact Verizon about providing Superintendent GwenCarol Holmes’ cell phone records and to come up with a lower fee for processing a public records request.

The suit came about after a Jan. 27 public records request filed by Pamela Plowman, a member of the group Coalition for BCSD Accountability. Plowman requested to see all email correspondence between Blaine County Prosecuting Attorney Jim Thomas and the district’s administrators, trustees and the board’s attorney between Jan. 27 and Nov. 24, 2015. The request indicated that Plowman wanted to receive the correspondence via email.

The coalition has said the communications pertain to its investigations into the alleged illegal recording of a meeting at the School District last fall between citizens and district officials. The meeting was investigated by law enforcement but no charges were filed.

The district indicated there are 704 emails included in the request, and it estimated the total fees for the request at $3,210, including $1,080 for its director of technology to extract, organize, process and print all the emails at a rate of $45 per hour for an estimated 24 hours of work. It also included $2,100 for Assistant Superintendent John Blackman to review the emails and redact them for personal and confidential information at a rate of $60 per hour for an estimated 35 hours of work and $30.20 for printing after the first 100 pages.

By Idaho statute, the district can charge a fee for all public records requests that will take staff more than two hours to prepare, as well as requests that exceed 100 produced pages. However, the statute also specifies that the organization processing the request must use the lowest-paid qualified staff member to do the work.

During a hearing in Blaine County 5th District Court on Tuesday, Judge Robert Elgee ordered the district to recalculate the costs of the request by finding the lowest-paid person who could do the work, saying that Blackman—the second-highest paid district employee—need not perform all the work. However, he did affirm the district’s right to assess fees for lengthy records requests and for requiring payment up front.

“I think you need to determine a cost to assimilate and print those 704 emails and I think any secretary can do that,” Elgee said, adding that the district would also need to identify the lowest-paid person who could review the emails to redact any information not subject to public records laws, like student information or private personnel information.

“I don’t see why a secretary couldn’t do that, either,” Elgee said.

Cell phone records

The issue of Holmes’ cell phone records came up in a Dec. 16, 2015, records request by Plowman to see the cell phone records of Holmes, Blackman and Communications Director Heather Crocker dating from Oct. 1, 2015, to Dec. 16, 2015.

The district supplied detailed cell phone records for Blackman and Crocker, including a list of each call made, but provided only a summary page for Holmes. The coalition said in a written statement that district Business Manager Mike Chatterton told them the district didn’t possess detailed records for Holmes, but claimed that Verizon confirmed that detailed calling records for Holmes exist and are available online.

At the hearing Tuesday, Elgee ordered the district to inquire with Verizon about getting the records for Holmes’ cell phone, something that John Ashby, the attorney representing the district, argued the district was not obligated to do because the records had not come directly into the district’s hands.

Elgee said he “wouldn’t bite” for that argument.

“They’ve got to open that link to the Verizon account for Ms. Holmes’ phone and see what’s there,” Elgee said. “You can’t block a public records request by blocking that flow of information to you.”

In a written statement, the coalition wrote that they were happy about Elgee’s rulings in their favor but were disappointed that the district didn’t release those public records in the first place, arguing that obstruction of access to public records indicates greater underlying problems with the organization.

“Denial of, or resistance to, such access is not only a problem in and of itself, but also a catalyst for even deeper public concern,” the coalition wrote.

The lawsuit came on the heels of approval by the district’s board of trustees of its 2016-17 budget, which contained cuts that coalition members had protested, arguing that too much money was being diverted from student needs.

Holmes pointed out in comments to the Idaho Mountain Express that the district had fielded an unprecedented number of 96 public records requests over the past year—84 of which were filed by the coalition—and had responded to all of them, taking up at least 168 hours of paid staff time. She also noted that the coalition had not yet offered any payment for the records requests in question.

“This represents a large number of hours of staff time ensuring that the public has access to every public record that falls within the scope of Idaho law,” she said.

The lawsuit is now on hold, pending resolution of the judge’s orders in the Tuesday hearing.

From the Idaho Mountain Express

Editorial from the Moscow-Pullman Daily News

Lee Rozen/Moscow-Pullman Daily News Editorial Board

The government belongs to us; we don’t belong to it.

But because we are busy making a living, raising kids, volunteering and seeing that grandma is OK, we have little time to hold it accountable for its actions.

Daily News reporters, by going to meetings and checking public records, can tell us when the City Council plans to raise our utility fees, why police cars were at our neighbors, how bad that highway wreck was or whether a public official is doing the job our taxes pay for.

Some government officials don’t appreciate this; most do.

Three recent incidents snap this into focus.

• A clerk in the Whitman County courthouse, perhaps feeling protective of other officials, refused to provide the Daily News the names and phone numbers for the county’s junior taxing districts – fire, water, school, hospital – and tried to quiz us on why we wanted them. Those public records must be provided to a newspaper – or you, no questions asked.
• The police chief in Lewiston decided only reporters who showed up at a crime scene or who submitted written questions Monday through Friday between noon and 1 p.m. would get more information about what his officers were doing. For years, there and elsewhere, reporters have called dispatchers and officers to clarify confusing or missing facts on the police log.
• On June 29, Latah County Sheriff Wayne Rausch stopping faxing even the log of sheriff’s calls to the Daily News. That was the day we ran a story letting Rausch explain that his house was being foreclosed as part of a 2012 bankruptcy stemming from a more than $100,000 debt that went back to his first election as sheriff in 2004. We think the public needs to know anytime any elected official who spends the public’s money wisely has trouble managing his own.

He thought it unfair.

A couple of days ago, he began releasing the logs to the Daily News again, but told us:

“This policy changed because the Moscow-Pullman Daily News seems to think that they can print anything they want and there’s no ramifications. … the consequences are when you put a hit piece out on me – and that’s exactly what you did and you know it – I don’t feel like being kind to the Moscow-Pullman Daily News anymore, and I’m not going to.”

Wednesday, his department refused to answer any questions without a formal public records request about an injury collision involving an arrest, two drug arrests, three drunk driving arrests, two arrests for other driving offenses, two burglaries, a theft, a hit-and-run and eight medical calls, among other things.

In the end, the clerk, the chief and the sheriff are putting out a hit on your ability to get public information.

Editorial from the Moscow-Pullman Daily News

From the Lewiston Tribune

By RALPH BARTHOLDT/Lewiston Tribune

A new policy adopted this week by the Lewiston Police Department restricts the flow of public information about criminal activity that occurs on weekends.

The policy, drafted by Police Chief Chris Ankeny, will limit the flow of information from the department for approximately 72 hours from around noon Friday to noon Monday and insulate officers from direct contact with the media.

The reason for the change is a lack of staffed positions to respond to media inquiries over the weekend, Ankeny said.

“The department or the city does not have someone available to respond to inquiries over the weekend,” the chief said.

Prior to the policy change, officers were available during the weekend to field occasional phone calls or media questions at their convenience. A member of the police department administrative staff would routinely field questions from reporters during the week.

In the past, Ankeny said, media members got weekend information directly from dispatchers who juggled emergency calls sometimes at the same time they handled reporter inquiries. Dispatch will no longer address those calls. To get weekend information from the department, the media must appear at a crime scene where reporters will be given a brief synopsis or a “sound bite,” according to the policy. Any more information will not be relayed until Monday when questions can be addressed in writing to the department’s public information officer and may require that a public records request be filed through the department.

The policy went into effect Monday. Media guidelines released by Ankeny Tuesday indicated no police call log would be released on weekends. Updated media guidelines released by the city Wednesday indicate the call log will be available on weekends but that newly hired city spokeswoman Carol Maurer will not answer questions about the log until Monday. Officers will not be available to answer questions about the log, according to the city.

According to the new policy, written questions must be submitted to Maurer between noon and 1 p.m. Monday through Friday “to allow officers time to research information and provide accurate and consistent answers to inquiries,” Ankeny said. The department’s previous policy allowed reporters access at an officer’s convenience during weekday business hours.

The policy, which bypassed the city council, has drawn concern from at least one council member.

“It’s kind of upsetting,” Councilor Jesse Maldonado said.

He was apprised of the policy change at the same time media members received an email regarding the new policy, he said.

“The city does not stop on the weekend,” he said. “The police department doesn’t stop on the weekend, the fire department doesn’t stop on the weekend, incidents don’t stop on the weekend.”

Maldonado said he, as well as other councilors as far as he knows, had no involvement in drafting the latest Lewiston Police Department policy.

“City residents reading the newspaper, their interest doesn’t stop on Friday,” he said. “That’s just not how it works.”

The new policy is in contrast to those of other area law enforcement agencies.

If something the media deems newsworthy happens on a Sunday, Asotin County Sheriff John Hilderbrand said reporters have his cellphone number and should feel free to call him or his undersheriff.

“If you hear about it, call and we’ll get you the information,” Hilderbrand said. “If we don’t know, we’ll find out and get back to you.”

The county also provides a log of events every day of the year, including holidays and whenever media members have questions.

The Lewiston department’s new policy discourages media members from contacting officers directly. Instead, all inquiries must be written requests sent to Maurer.

The policy is at odds with the Nez Perce County Sheriff’s Office, where media members have quick access to call logs and personnel at any time during business hours and can contact the sheriff or chief deputy after hours. An acting public information officer pushes calls to officers during the day, or has officers return calls when they have time.

“There isn’t a policy,” Sheriff Joe Rodriguez said. “They can come in and talk to anybody.”

Clarkston Police Chief Joel Hastings said most departments nationwide are moving toward a similar community policing policy in which officers regularly interact with the media and the public, instead of moving away from those interactions and using a liaison to funnel information.

“As an agency we have a good, efficient, working relationship with the media and we keep those channels of communication open,” Hastings said. “It’s about the police department being part of the community and not segregated.”

Ankeny said Lewiston’s new policy provides safeguards to ensure only accurate information is released, sometimes at the expense of expedience.

“To ensure an accurate flow of information with our media partners,” Ankeny wrote in a prepared statement. “The city feels that one point of contact for all media inquiries is a best practice that will improve information flow and ensure accurate, timely and transparent reporting of information.”

Lewiston Mayor Jim Kleeburg said the policy isn’t set in stone and can be readdressed if it is found to impede public information.

“When it becomes a detriment to public information it can be something we can look at,” Kleeburg said. “I am willing to let this ride out.”

City Manager Jim Bennett, who oversees Ankeny and the police department, did not return calls for comment on the new police policy.

From the Lewiston Tribune

Editorial from the Idaho Mountain Express

A local citizens’ group has asked the 5th District Court to determine whether the Blaine County School District was right to charge fees totaling nearly $3,200 to produce public records in response to six requests.

Neither the motives of the group, which has been highly critical of the district, nor the actions of the School District are at issue in the lawsuit. Instead, it is about major issues in the Idaho Open Records Law that have gone unresolved for years.

When legislators passed the law, they knew that portions were unclear. They left them that way to get enough votes to get the law passed. A court decision that clarifies the law or makes it apparent that the law needs to be changed would be a great public service.

The large fees and if the School District imposed them legally are the issues the group asked the court to weigh in on.

Idaho law clearly allows public agencies to charge fees to recover labor costs for large or complex requests, or for locating archival information. However, the law says that the fees can’t exceed the actual cost to the agency for meeting the requests. The first 100 pages of information are to be free. The law is murky on how much an agency can charge to provide electronic information.

Fees can be waived if the requester demonstrates that records are likely to contribute significantly to the public understanding of government activities.

The law’s stated intent is to ensure that the public has access to public records. However, the law contains no limit on what agencies can charge.

When are agency fees so high that they defeat the intent of the law and enable the government to hide information? At what point do the fees become punitive and create insurmountable financial hurdles contrary to the public interest?

These are reasonable questions. It would be helpful for government and the public if the court answers them.

Editorial from the Idaho Mountain Express

From The Spokesman-Review

From The Spokesman-Review

From Idaho Education News

by Kevin Richert

A protracted public records battle in the Blaine County School District could be heading to court.

Two patrons and a citizens’ group, the Coalition for Blaine County School District Accountability, filed a lawsuit Wednesday, seeking school officials’ emails and telephone records. (Click here to download the lawsuit.)

The lawsuit outlines a series of access disputes:

• In January, Pamela Plowman sought two months’ worth of email correspondence between Blaine County Prosecutor Jim Thomas and district officials. She was told the district had identified 704 such emails, and was told she would have to pay $3,210 for copies.
• Plowman requested office phone records for Superintendent GwenCarol Holmes, assistant superintendent John Blackman and district spokeswoman Heather Crocker. The district denied the request, and said it would cost $376.62 to compile the records.
• Plowman requested cell phone bills and records for Holmes, Blackman and Crocker. Plaintiffs say the records were readily available, but district officials did not attempt to request them from their cellular carrier.

“It is the Blaine County School District’s desire to comply with the law,” Holmes said in a statement Thursday. However, she said the district has never possessed the phone records in question. She also said public agencies have the right to collect fees for public records that take more than two hours to compile, and can collect copying fees for records exceeding 100 pages.

In a statement Thursday night, Plowman criticized district officials for hiring outside legal counsel instead of simply complying with the records requests.

“We had no choice but to hire an attorney,” she said. “We thought this issue was so important that we decided to fund this out of our own pockets to protect the rights of the public.”

The records in question cover a time of turbulence in the Blaine County district, as trustees wrestled with a contract extension for Holmes. Late last year, Thomas told trustees they had discussed the contract in an illegal closed meeting. As a result, the board started the process over, and awarded the contract extension in January.

From Idaho Education News