Westlake police found records for GOP but not Dispatch

From The Columbus Dispatch People with Ed FitzGerald’s personal information accessed a state website to check on his driver’s license months before his well-documented woes surfaced in public. And at least one of his county employees learned in early 2012 that the boss did not have a license.

But it’s impossible to identify who used an Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles Web page, set up so that Ohioans can check on their own licenses, to look into the Democratic gubernatorial candidate twice last year and five times this year.

“I’m concerned about who accessed it. How much of my personal information did they have?” FitzGerald said. “These are important privacy questions that have ramifications for anybody, whether they are a candidate or not.”

FitzGerald’s campaign said six of the seven checks were unauthorized, including both in 2013. His campaign only once shared his date of birth, driver’s license number and the last four digits of his Social Security number with a former campaign aide to run a check on Aug. 4 or 5 of this year after his driver’s license problems became public.

All of that information is needed to access an individual’s “unofficial” information on the BMV Web page, which shows only whether a license is valid and lists traffic convictions from the previous two years.

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Dispatch editorial: Ohio Supreme Court can ensure that government operates openly

Columbus Dispatch editorial Open-meetings laws are effective only if they actually compel public entities to conduct public business in public. That clearly is the intent, and the Olentangy school board appears to have violated the intent of the law by discussing what should have been public matters through private emails.

The Ohio Supreme Court is being asked to take up an appeal of a case filed by an Olentangy school board member, Adam White, against other members who corresponded with each other via email before taking an official action. White filed suit last year in Delaware County Common Pleas Court, which ruled that four other school board members did not violate open-meetings laws in exchanging the emails.

The Dispatch would welcome the Supreme Court taking the case and affirming the need for boards to adhere to what often are referred to as “sunshine” laws. Other groups supporting White’s appeal include the Ohio Coalition for Open Government, Common Cause Ohio and the League of Women Voters of Ohio, all which joined in a “friend of the court” brief backing White.

The suit came about after the board’s four other members — Dave King, Julie Wagner Feasel, Kevin O’Brien and Stacy Dunbar — exchanged emails and calls that White says constituted an illegal, private meeting. Anyone in business today knows that many “meetings” as they were known a decade or two ago now have been replaced by this type of technology-enabled communication, so to argue that an email or phone call can’t constitute a meeting is nonsense.

That argument also renders meaningless the laws that are supposed to ensure public oversight of government. If a board thinks there are no consequences for these type of secretive communications, they will become commonplace, especially where controversial topics are involved.

Clear direction from the Supreme Court also would be welcome to counter another lower-court ruling in a similar Ohio case several years ago.

In 2005, an Ohio judge ruled against a board member in the Northwest Local School District in Cincinnati who alleged his colleagues broke open-meetings laws via emails; the judge said the man failed to prove that such an email could be called a meeting.

White is seen by some in the school district as a gadfly. Since his election in 2011, he often has been at odds with his school board colleagues, and accused the schools superintendent of threatening him — something other board members deny.

But he was elected to serve the public, and on this score, White seems to be doing his job.

Some boards already have been shown to act as rubber stamps for the administrations they were supposed to be overseeing, as was the case with Columbus City Schools under former Superintendent Gene Harris. Some government boards are surprised or even hostile when members of the public appear at meetings. Many operate for years with nary a “no” vote or substantive debate in open meetings, a clear indication that discussions and decisions are being made out of sight of the public.

This isn’t the way it’s supposed to work; technology was supposed to enhance, not reduce, transparency and access to information for the public.

Olentangy school board member turns to Supreme Court in fight with other members

From The Columbus Dispatch The Ohio Supreme Court is being asked to overturn lower-court ruling holding that Olentangy school board members did not violate open-meetings laws while exchanging emails underlying an eventual decision.

Board member Adam White filed the appeal last week in the case he brought against his four fellow school board members in the Delaware County district alleging that they illegally “ deliberated” via email.

The Ohio Coalition for Open Government, Common Cause Ohio and the League of Women Voters of Ohio yesterday filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief supporting White’s appeal.

Allowing the prior decisions to stand “sets a dangerous precedent which allows all public agencies in the state to avoid the Sunshine Law simply by deliberating electronically, rather than in person,” White argued in his filing.

The case centers on the four school board members — White was excluded — writing each other to authorize a letter to the editor ofThe Dispatch in response to an editorial criticizing a new board policy White viewed as aimed at him.

After White’s investigation uncovered misspending by two high school athletic directors, the board passed a policy requiring its members to communicate with employees only through the superintendent or treasurer.

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Could Cleveland police keep body-camera footage secret? Ohio law is unclear

From The Plain Dealer Hundreds of Cleveland police could be equipped with body cameras as soon as next year, but whether the footage the cameras capture would would be available to the public is unclear.

Ohio's open records law doesn't address whether video from the cameras could be kept secret. And any records not specifically exempted under state open-records law are typically required to be open for inspection by the public.

But police could try to invoke an exemption in state law that allows them to withhold records related to a police investigation, according to Dan Tierney, a spokesman for Attorney General Mike DeWine.

If that happens, Tierney said, state courts or the legislature would need to resolve the issue.

Earlier this year, the 12th District Court of Appeals in southwest Ohio ruled that footage from police cruiser dashboard cameras are investigatory documents, and thus are not public records. Right now, that ruling only applies to the eight counties included in the 12th district.

On the other hand, Tierney noted, the Ohio Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that police incident reports don't fall under the exemption and must be released upon request.

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Ohio GOP urges court to make Ed FitzGerald give sworn testimony in public records suit

From The Plain Dealer Filings with the Ohio Supreme Court make clear that the Ohio Republican Party isn't willing to mediate its public records dispute with Cuyahoga County and that it wants sworn testimony from County Executive Ed FitzGerald.

In a filing Monday, lawyers for the Republican Party argued that FitzGerald, as the chief executive, is the person who best could answer questions about the county's refusal to release the documents due to security reasons. That refusal, they say, should be put to the test.

The filing was in response to a request by the county, on behalf of FitzGerald, that he not be made to give a deposition. FitzGerald was scheduled to give a deposition last week, but the Supreme Court delayed that while it decides the county's request.

Attorneys for the county said FitzGerald and Sheriff Frank Bova are not responsible for the records and therefore would offer no valuable information to offer in depositions.

County attorneys described efforts by the GOP to depose FitzGerald as an attempt "to create newspaper fodder in the middle of a gubernatorial campaign."

The Ohio GOP sued in the Supreme Court in July to force FitzGerald, the Democratic challenger to Republican Gov. John Kasich, to release data about his use of a county parking garage and key swipe data that would show his comings and goings.

County officials declined to release the records, which also were requested by Northeast Ohio Media Group, citing safety concerns. FitzGerald called the lawsuit a "political tactic," arguing that he, like the governor, faces legitimate security concerns. He said he had received death threats and that some of the cases involving the threats remain open.

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Lucas County commissioners claim meeting with mayor legal

From The Blade he three Democratic Lucas County commissioners skated on the edge of Ohio’s open-meetings law recently when they prearranged and attended a last-minute meeting with Toledo Mayor D. Michael Collins.

Commissioners Carol Contrada, Pete Gerken, and Tina Skeldon Wozniak, along with Lucas County Administrator Laura Lloyd-Jenkins, asked to see Mayor Collins after receiving a letter from him about his decision to order police to charge most criminals under state laws rather than city ordinances. The move could save the city $4 million to $9 million but leave the county short that money.

The four took the elevator from the county’s eighth-floor office in One Government Center to the mayor’s 22nd-floor suite.

Mrs. Contrada, president of the commissioners, said it was not a public meeting and not a violation of the law because the three did not deliberate.

The Ohio Attorney General’s resource manual on the sunshine laws states: “With narrow exceptions, the Open Meetings Act requires the members of a public body to discuss and deliberate on official business only in open meetings.”

The law also states: “In evaluating whether particular gatherings of public officials constituted ‘meetings,’ several courts have opined that the Open Meetings Act is intended to apply to situations where there has been actual formal action taken, such as deliberation upon official business.”

Mrs. Contrada, an attorney, acknowledged that there was a majority of the board present and that it was prearranged, but stressed that the commissioners neither spoke among themselves nor answered any questions from the mayor.

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Innocence group sues to gain inmate’s case file

From the Associated Press Columbus police are improperly shielding the complete files of a long-closed criminal case, according to a public records lawsuit that contends police around the state increasingly refuse to release such records until all chance of appeals are exhausted, usually because the defendant is dead.

At issue is an attempt by the Ohio Innocence Project to review the case of a man sentenced to 38 years in prison for killing a woman in 2005. The project doesn’t represent defendant Adam Saleh but wants to review the records, which Saleh alleges will bolster his claim that he didn’t do it.

The broader issue, according to the lawsuit, is that police departments are wrongly interpreting prior court rulings when it comes to the public’s right to get information about closed cases.

The agencies are using their interpretation “to rationalize blanket denials of public records requests by both criminal defendants and members of the general public,” according to the lawsuit by Cincinnati attorney Donald Caster.

A 2000 appeals court ruling said police aren’t obligated to release the files without proof that no further appeals are possible, “e.g., the defendant’s death.”

The suit says changes in Ohio Supreme Court evidence rules have addressed concerns raised by older court rulings regarding the release of case files. The lawsuit wants the court to order Columbus to make the records immediately available.

The court referred the case to mediation. The city attorney’s office declined comment.

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Federal judge recuses herself in Blade suit

From The Blade A mediation session scheduled in a federal lawsuit filed by The Blade over the detention of a reporter and photographer outside the Lima tank plant was canceled Tuesday after the judge recused herself.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Vernelis Armstrong, who was assigned to the case by Judge James Carr, removed herself because Fritz Byers, attorney for The Blade, represents her son in a personal matter, “which could give the appearance of impropriety,” she wrote in an order filed Tuesday. The matter was sent back to Judge Carr for further disposition.

Blade reporter Tyrel Linkhorn and photographer Jetta Fraser were detained outside the General Dynamics plant March 28 by military security personnel, who confiscated Ms. Fraser’s cameras and deleted photos. The lawsuit states that Ms. Fraser and Mr. Linkhorn were unlawfully detained, that Ms. Fraser was unlawfully restrained and received unlawful threats of bodily harm, that the cameras were unlawfully confiscated and pictures unlawfully destroyed, and that the pair’s constitutional rights were violated.

Website compares Ohio charter schools, districts

From The Columbus Dispatch Noting the current difficulty in finding information about charter schools and how they compare with traditional Ohio public schools, a progressive policy-research group and the state’s largest teachers union teamed up to create a website that allows for quick comparisons.

But charter-school advocates quickly criticized the site as “really misleading.”

Knowyourcharter.com allows people to search by traditional public-school district or charters to bring up a variety of academic performance, personnel and financial information. Calling up a public school district also brings up a list of all the charter schools that at least one student from that district attends.

Viewers can find out how the district’s performance index grade compares with charters, how much state money from that district goes to charter schools, and a variety of other data.

Reynoldsburg withholds substitutes’ names from ‘Dispatch,’ citing safety

From The Columbus Dispatch Are substitute teachers who cross the Reynoldsburg Education Association’s picket line in as much danger as police officers who have been threatened by drug and motorcycle gangs?

Reynoldsburg schools Treasurer Tammira Miller appeared to think so when she rejected an open-records request from The Dispatch for the list of substitute teachers who are replacing striking Reynoldsburg teachers. The newspaper wants to check the credentials of these public employees.

Teachers’ names are typically a public record. But Miller said the district has a duty to protect the safety of the substitute teachers.

In a letter rejecting our open-records request, she cited a Columbus case in which a judge said that an attorney for members of the Short North Posse drug gang could not receive personal information about the police officers who had arrested the gang members. And she cited a case in which a judge said that Cincinnati did not have to disclose the names of police officers who had been in a shootout with a motorcycle gang.

The only case she cited that involves substitute teachers who are replacing striking teachers was one from Strongsville in 2013 that is now before the Ohio Supreme Court. Strongsville refused to disclose the names of substitute teachers. An appeals court said that, unless the district could provide evidence that the substitutes were in danger, it had to release their names. Rather than release the names, the Strongsville district appealed.

Though we asked, Miller has yet to provide evidence that Reynoldsburg’s substitute teachers have been threatened.

Toledo Blade lawsuit over detention of two journalists by military security goes to mediation

From The Blade A federal lawsuit filed by The Blade against a variety of government officials over the detention of two journalists by military security outside a Lima tank plant was referred Monday for a mediation meeting.

Blade reporter Tyrel Linkhorn and photographer Jetta Fraser were detained outside the General Dynamics plant March 28 by military security personnel, who confiscated Ms. Fraser’s cameras and deleted pictures. The lawsuit states that Ms. Fraser and Mr. Linkhorn were unlawfully detained, that Ms. Fraser was unlawfully restrained and received unlawful threats of bodily harm, that the cameras were unlawfully confiscated and pictures unlawfully destroyed, and that the pair’s Constitutional rights were unlawfully prevented from being exercised.

The lawsuit in U.S. District Court claims Ms. Fraser and Mr. Linkhorn’s First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights were deprived, as were their rights under the First Amendment Privacy Protection Act.

A conference on the case was held Monday and it was referred for mediation to Magistrate Judge Vernelis K. Armstrong on Oct. 9. If case is not settled on or before Oct. 15, another conference is set for Oct. 20 before Judge James G. Carr.

“At all material times, Plaintiffs Fraser and Linkhorn were present in places that were open to the public and in which Plaintiffs had a lawful right to be,” the lawsuit states.

“At all material times, Plaintiffs Fraser and Linkhorn were engaged in fully lawful and constitutionally protected conduct, observing and photographing subjects that were and are open to public view and that Plaintiffs had full legal and constitutional rights to observe and photograph.”

Blade attorney Fritz Byers declined to comment.

Reports on college crime are deceptively inaccurate

From The Columbus Dispatch The crime statistics being released by colleges nationwide on Wednesday are so misleading that they give students and parents a false sense of security.

Even the U.S. Department of Education official who oversees compliance with a federal law requiring that the statistics be posted on Oct. 1 each year admits that they are inaccurate. Jim Moore said that a vast majority of schools comply with the law but some purposely underreport crimes to protect their images; others have made honest mistakes in attempting to comply.

In addition, weaknesses in the law allow for thousands of off-campus crimes involving students to go unreported, and the Education Department does little to monitor or enforce compliance with the law — even when colleges report numbers that seem questionable.

The White House and some in Congress have noticed and are pushing for changes, including increased sanctions.

The law, known as the Clery Act, was enacted in 1991 to alert students to dangers on campus, but it often fails at its core mission, a joint investigation by The Dispatch and the Student Press Law Center found.

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Enquirer editorial: Public had right to see Wal-mart video

Editorial from The Cincinnati Enquirer Residents in our community – perhaps a good many of them – worry that law enforcement isn't on their side merely because of the color of their skin.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine's recent decision to withhold video of Beavercreek police killing an African-American in Wal-Mart reinforced that perception. He said he didn't want to taint a potential case against the officers, but Iris Roley, a Bond Hill business owner, isn't buying it.

"I think it is a travesty that in 2014 the video was not released in a timely fashion so ... taxpayers could determine what actually happened," she said. "The grand jury was tainted because of all the misinformation that went out. The story through the media was in favor of the police."

She's right.

DeWine's office finally made the video available Wednesday after a grand jury declined to indict two officers involved in the shooting. The footage released doesn't show John Crawford III, 22, of Fairfield waving the pellet gun at customers, as police initially said. The segment, which lacks sound, doesn't show any indication that he heard police yelling to put the gun down, as authorities say they did.

It shows a man standing alone in front of a shelf, occasionally swinging a gun by his side while holding a phone to his ear. Then it shows him falling, shot, as police race toward him.

The young man's family is understandably outraged at the lack of an indictment, but we will withhold judgment on the grand jury's decision since we don't know the full case that was laid out, or not laid out. We do extend our condolences to Crawford's family and friends for the needless death of their loved one, and we welcome the investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Regardless of Beavercreek officers' culpability, the state's top law official failed both in his duty to serve all citizens equally and in his responsibility to uphold Ohio law.

Specifically, DeWine's refusal to release the video was in violation of the Public Records Act, Ohio Revised Code 149.43, according to Enquirer attorney John "Jack" Greiner. DeWine continues to insist the tape was shielded by an exemption, but he couldn't say exactly which exemption applied in a meeting with the Northwest Ohio Media Group on Wednesday.

Journalists call public records laws "Sunshine Laws" for a reason: The public's ability to know what its government is doing is a cornerstone of our democracy.

With each confrontation that leaves a young, unarmed black man dead at the hands of a police officer, law enforcement loses the confidence of more citizens. Withholding information – whether the name of the officer, as in Ferguson, Missouri, or a video here – erodes that trust even more.

"We get killed while walking; we get killed while standing on the road; now we get killed while shopping," Roley said. "I don't know what to tell little black children I see every day. It appears as if their life does not matter."

In Cincinnati, we've been patting ourselves on the back that we've gotten police-community relations right since Timothy Thomas' death in 2001 and the subsequent Collaborative Agreement. Since Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson in August, national media have written about what that St. Louis suburb could learn from Cincinnati.

But Roley, a member of the Black United Front that helped negotiate the collaborative, is heartbroken about the death just up the road in a Dayton suburb of a young man who was a son and a father.

"We're always one incident away from being a Ferguson," she said.

Is this OK? Or are we going to demand that officials like DeWine represent all of the people, not just the police?

Appeals court dismisses lawsuit against Olentangy Board of Education

From The Delaware Gazette A second court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a member of the Olentangy Board of Education who alleged that his colleagues violated the state’s open meeting laws.

The 5th District Court of Appeals upheld a Delaware County Common Pleas Court ruling that dismissed Adam White’s lawsuit against his fellow board members.

White alleges that a series of emails between the four other board members – who were trying to craft a response to a 2012 Columbus Dispatch editorial critical of a district policy – is a violation of Ohio law.

The editorial was in response to a policy the board adopted that required communications between board members and staff to pass through the superintendent or treasurer after White launched an independent investigation into expenditures of two of the district’s athletic directors. One later resigned and both were required to reimburse the district for improper spending.

The court cited a 2002 change in the state’s open meeting laws, which did not address electronic communication between members of a public body.

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Federal judge: Ohio won't bust lying politicians

From The Cincinnati Enquirer A federal judge has struck down Ohio's law forbidding lies in political campaigns, saying voters -- not the government -- should decide whether a campaign is telling the truth.

The 19-year-old Ohio law had banned falsehoods in campaigns and empowered the Ohio Elections Commission to determine whether disputed statements were true or false. But critics said the law prevented them from freely criticizing political candidates because they feared prosecution under Ohio's law against false claims.

"The answer to false statements in politics is not to force silence (by forbidding lies) but to encourage truthful speech in response, and to let the voters, not the Government, decide what the political truth is," Judge Timothy Black said Thursday in his ruling.

Quoting the TV drama "House of Cards," he said, "There's no better way to overpower a trickle of doubt than with a flood of naked truth."

The case came back to Black after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that an anti-abortion organization and a Cincinnati anti-tax group could challenge the law's constitutionality.

The conflict that led to the suit dates back to 2010.

The national anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List planned to buy a billboard accusing then-U.S. Rep. Steve Driehaus of supporting taxpayer-funded abortions. Their logic? He voted in favor of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Driehaus said the allegation was a lie – he, in fact, ran as an anti-abortion Democrat – and filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission. With the threat of legal action looming, the billboard owner decided not to run the ad. Driehaus dropped his complaint after he lost his re-election bid, but not before the commission found "probable cause" in a preliminary review that Susan B. Anthony List had violated the state law.

The Reporters Committee is about to start suing people to help journalists

From The Columbia Journalism Review Fair warning, all ye who interfere with newsgathering: The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press is getting ready to sue you.

The organization has hired its first litigation director, Katie Townsend, to bring lawsuits around the country in cases that affect access to information for the press and public.

Although the RCFP has provided legal assistance to journalists for nearly 45 years—developing media law guides, filing amicus briefs, issuing statements, answering questions, making referrals to outside counsel—not since the 1980s has the RCFP itself been active as a litigant. It is re-entering that arena now to help fill a void created as news outlets, strapped for resources, have retreated from some legal battles.

“It’s in our blood,” said Bruce Brown, the group’s executive director. “This type of work is part of our history and mission, and now we’re doing all we can to enhance it—to use our expertise to ensure that journalists can gather and report the news without interference.”

The new position was created by rededicating funds that once supported a freedom of information director, who left the RCFP in 2013. To make the most of its resources, the organization will use several models to manage its litigation: handling cases in-house from start to finish; coordinating cases and dividing the labor with partners, such as law firms, law school clinics, or groups like the ACLU; and referring cases to outside counsel, the group’s favored approach for the past 25 years.

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Jack Greiner on the Walmart Cover Up

By Jack Greiner A young African American man named John Crawford was shot and killed recently in a Beaver Creek Ohio Walmart. The shooter was a Beaver Creek police officer. The events leading up to the shooting and the shooting itself was captured on Walmart surveillance video. That video runs continuously throughout the day and night.

Walmart turned the video over to authorities, and it’s now in the hands of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, an arm of the Ohio Attorney General, Mike DeWine.  In Ohio, a record maintained by a public office is a public record. The Walmart surveillance video fits that description. And it’s supposed to be produced on request of any member of the public.

But despite multiple requests by Mr. Crawford’s family and others, the BCI won’t release it.

Why? The BCI claims that since the video is now part of a criminal investigation, they don’t have to produce it. They say it’s exempt from production, along with every other scrap of paper in the BCI file because it’s exempt under the Confidential Law Enforcement Investigatory Record (“CLEIR”) exception. But with all due respect, they are wrong.

The CLEIR exception permits law enforcement to withhold a limited number of records under limited circumstances. Which means that just saying “it’s part of an investigation” doesn’t cut it. The record has to be part of an investigation, but it also has to disclose the identity of a confidential source, reveal a confidential investigatory techniques, uncover  an uncharged suspect or pose a risk of harm to someone by virtue of the release. And even if one of those factors apply, the record still needs to be released with the confidential information redacted. Here’s a brief we field recently in a similar case with BCI that discusses the law in more detail.

And one more thing.  Routine incident reports and 911 calls aren’t part of the investigation and aren’t subject to the CLEIR exception. The reason? Those reports kick off the investigation, but they’re not part of the investigation. SO a routine surveillance camera that runs 24/7 and happens to catch a shooting in my mind is an incident report. So the CLEIR exception doesn’t apply. And the BCI’s heavy handed approach in these matters is completely off base.

Want governor's correspondence? Be very specific

From The Columbus Dispatch The office of Republican Gov. John Kasich is advising Ohioans who want copies of communications and emails to specify a subject or topic or their request for public records is doomed to rejection as overly broad.

Lawyers for Attorney General Mike DeWine, who are defending Kasich and Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor in a public records suit filed by the Ohio Democratic Party, provided the advice yesterday in an Ohio Supreme Court filing.

Their motion asked the justices to dismiss the Democrats’ suit, arguing it cannot succeed because the party failed to file a proper public records request and rejected the governor’s office invitations to specify exactly what it is looking for.

Citing prior Supreme Court rulings regarding overly broad requests, the motion says government has no responsibility to turn over all communications between office employees over the space of a year.

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Ohio's AG won't release video of police shooting at Walmart

From The Cincinnati Enquirer Ohio's attorney general said he won't publicly release surveillance video of a man fatally shot by police at a Dayton-area Wal-Mart despite a growing effort by family and supporters on social media calling for it.

Facebook groups and online petitions have been created pushing for the release of the video of police killing of John Crawford III inside of a Wal-Mart store in the Dayton suburb of Beavercreek on Aug. 5, according to the Dayton Daily News.

Crawford was fatally shot by officers responding to a 911 call that a man was waving a rifle in the store. They said Crawford refused orders to drop the weapon, which turned out to be a pellet rifle he had taken off a store shelf.

His supporters say the public has a right to know what happened. People and groups ranging from the president of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus to the Rev. Al Sharpton's civil rights group National Action Network have called for the tape's release.

Crawford was black. The officers involved in his shooting are white.

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The public's right to know

By Laura Arenschield The Columbus Dispatch  When I first took this job, environmental activists and other reporters warned me that Ohio’s state agencies could be tough to deal with, that they sometimes act as though they would rather protect oil and gas companies than the people of Ohio.

I don’t know whether that’s actually the intention of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which is the agency that oversees fracking and drilling and all its related activities here. But I get the frustration.

In June, I asked for a stack of public records related to fracking from ODNR. These are important records, we think here at the newspaper, because they have a lot to do with Ohioans’ health and safety. For the last three months, the agency’s public information officers – the people who are supposed to be helping us all have access to information about ODNR’s activities — have told me that they were working on the request, or that the request was with their legal team for review.

Three months seemed like a long time to us here, so this morning, I, another reporter, and my editor had a conference call with ODNR’s chief lawyer to see what the holdup might be.

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