Could police body cameras cause rollback of public record laws?

From The New York Times

Police departments around the country have been moving with unusual speed to equip officers with body cameras to film their often edgy encounters with the public. But the adoption of these cameras has created a new conflict over who has the right to view the recordings.

In Seattle, where a dozen officers started wearing body cameras in a pilot program in December, the department has set up its own YouTube channel, broadcasting a stream of blurred images to protect the privacy of people filmed. Much of this footage is uncontroversial; one scene shows a woman jogging past a group of people and an officer watching her, then having a muted conversation with people whose faces have been obscured.

“We were talking about the video and what to do with it, and someone said, ‘What do people do with police videos?’ ” said Mike Wagers, chief operating officer of the Seattle police. His answer: “They put it on YouTube.”

... Some state legislatures, though, are coming out against broad disclosure policies. Among a flurry of 87 bills related to body cameras that have been introduced in 29 legislatures, 15 states are moving to limit what the public is allowed to see from the recordings. In some cases, lawmakers have sought to remove the videos from public records laws, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

“The issue challenges the assumption that everything that happens in public should be public,” said James McMahan, policy director for the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. “But I don’t know that we want a woman standing there with bruises and scratches and other signs of domestic violence to be posted on YouTube. The instance of her being posted online forever might be a greater crisis than the original incident.”

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100-plus local governments respond to Josh Mandel's invitation to post checkbooks online

From The Plain Dealer In the week since they were mailed invitations, more than 100 local governments have expressed interest in posting their checkbooks in a public online database through the Ohio treasurer's office.

One large county, Mahoning County in Northeast Ohio, has formalized its intentions in a partnership with the treasurer's office.

In December, the state's checkbook became searchable online through OhioCheckbook.com. The database contains more than 112 million transactions by state agencies and boards over the past seven years, through June 2014. Expenditures can be searched by agency, vendor or keyword with comparisons to past years as well as other agencies and departments.

That effort drew praise from outside public interest advocates. The database ranked No. 1 among state spending databases in 2014 in the U.S. Public Interest Research Group's annual "Following the Money" report in March.

State Treasurer Josh Mandel touted the idea to promote government transparency. He also has said that shining light on public expenditures likely will also promote more restrained government, one of his personal goals.

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Enquirer threatens lawsuit over streetcar bid docs

From The Cincinnati Enquirer The Enquirer on Thursday threatened legal action against the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority because the public agency refuses to release documents that will give taxpayers information about how much it will cost to run Cincinnati's streetcar each year.

In a March 30 public records request, The Enquirer sought documents submitted by companies bidding to run the day-to-day operations of the city-owned streetcar. SORTA denied that request Monday, saying releasing the proposals to the public before awarding the contract could compromise the competitive process.

State law does not allow for such an exemption, Enquirer attorney Jack Greiner said in a letter to SORTA.

"Further," Greiner wrote, "federal law specifically requires such disclosures of public records as commanded by state law. Consequently, there is no basis for your withholding the requested records. If you persist in doing so, The Enquirer reserves its rights to proceed with (legal) action that will seek statutory damages and attorneys' fees."

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Ohio Auditor fighting mad over GOP move to kill public-records rulings

From The Columbus Dispatch Ohio Auditor Dave Yost is fighting mad over a move by fellow Republicans in the House of Representatives to prevent his office from ruling on complaints that state agencies are violating public-records laws.

“This came out of the darkness of the night like a brick through the window,” Yost told The Dispatch this afternoon. “This is a full frontal assault on the independence of my office and I’m not going to stand for it.”

A measure in the House GOP state budget rewrite introduced yesterday would kill the “Sunshine Audit" program that Yost unveiled last month during the national Sunshine Week observance of government transparency.

“I don’t know if I would be welcome to testify, but I certainly plan to be heard in every corner of this state. If this can stand, they can protect anybody they want. Just make the Finance Committee of the House in charge of the world,” Yost said.

House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger said the provision makes a clear delineation of the auditor’s duties. “It’s our prerogative that the legislature does so. We’re not really telling him. We’re clarifying, in my opinion.”

The Clarksville Republican added, “There’s a place for everything. I don’t know that that’s the place for the auditor.”

Rep. Ryan Smith, R-Bidwell, chairman of the House Finance Committee, said there are already processes for people to settle public-records disputes.

“I think most people understand the auditor is going to audit public institutions on their finances,” he said. “Public records requests are a whole different animal.”

Yost said he hasn’t had “a lick of communication from across the street” and does not know what GOP lawmakers find objectionable.

“On the merits, someone needs to explain why it is a bad idea to have a quick, easy, cheap resolution to routine public records requests,” he said.

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Editorial: Charter reform bill falls short of the goal of full transparency

Editorial from The Vindicator If the Republican majority in the Ohio General Assembly is sincere about fixing the broken charter school system, it will kill the measure now before the House and introduce one that guarantees accountability and transparency.

We have long argued that charter schools should be governed by the same rules and regulations as public schools, seeing as how more than $1 billion has been redirected from local districts to the charters. It has been 18 years since Republicans in the General Assembly adopted school choice as a major plank in their political platform and decided that public dollars should follow the students who move out of public schools.

The GOP, responding to the wishes of major campaign donors, also made sure there would not be any impediments, such as the prying eyes of the taxpayers, to operation of charter schools.

Thus today, the 120,000 students in the 300 schools are at the mercy of the owners and operators. And as Ohio Auditor David Yost revealed recently, the overreporting of attendance is a systemic problem.

Yost’s office conducted an informal audit of 30 community schools and found shockingly low attendance rates at half the schools, Indeed, at the Academy for Urban Scholars in Youngstown, auditors did not find a single student in school. Two months earlier, the school reported 2014-15 attendance at 95.

Attendance, or lack thereof, is just one in a long list of problems that have plagued the charter school industry for years.

That’s why House Bill 2 before the General Assembly is too little, too late.

The measure would prohibit poor-performing charter schools from regularly switching sponsors, require contracts between schools and management companies to be filed with the state and posted online, and push for increased public information about charter school performance.

Democratic state Sen. Joe Schiavoni of Boardman, the minority leader, is pushing for legislation that would clamp down on charter sponsors and operations.

“Ohio’s system of regulating public charter schools is broken. ... There are just too many examples of students being cheated out of a good education and tax dollars being wasted for the General Assembly to ignore the problem any longer.”

State governance

The only way to accomplish this is to change the governance of the industry so that the Ohio Department of Education would exert the same authority as it does with the public school system, and the state auditor would have free rein to regularly audit the books of the charter schools and to conduct special audits when needed.

Republicans can no longer argue that the sanctity of school choice must be preserved and that state government should keep its hands off the charters.

As the list of irregularities grows, the need for transparency and accountability has never been greater. Ohio’s open records law should be applied so taxpayers can track expenditure of public funds.

The creators of the charter school industry in Ohio made a lot of promises about the education of children and the management of taxpayer dollars that have not been kept. Public school districts, including the academically and fiscally embattled one in Youngstown, are losing significant amounts of money to a system that is not a viable alternative.

It’s time for the Republican-controlled Legislature and Republican Gov. John Kasich to make things right.

Justices will decide if Olentangy board met illegally via email

From The Columbus Dispatch The Ohio Supreme Court will determine if the Olentangy school board illegally circumvented open-meetings laws when school board members exchanged emails ahead of an eventual decision.

The court today accepted the appeal of Adam White, a school board member who accuses his colleagues of illegally “deliberating” via email in making a decision out of public view.

White is appealing an appeals court decision upholding a trial court decision that the Delaware County school board did not meet illegally.

Allowing the prior rulings 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 one another to authorize a letter to the editor of The 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.

On the day White filed his illegal-meeting lawsuit in April 2013, the board voted to approve the letter to the editor sent six months earlier. A judge subsequently dismissed White’s lawsuit, and an appellate court upheld the dismissal that found the emails were not a prearranged discussion of public business.

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

Cleveland lawyer David Marburger, the author of the brief supporting White, wrote that “the Sunshine Law’s democracy-sustaining purpose cannot survive if a quorum of a public body can retreat to their email inboxes” to avoid scrutiny.

The school board argues that the exchange of emails did not constitute an illegal prearranged discussion of public business.

NFOIC and SPJ combine war chests to fight for Freedom of Information

The Society of Professional Journalists and the National Freedom of Information Coalition are joining forces – and legal war chests – to help citizens and journalists fight for public records. The two groups will band together to help litigants who sue for access to government information. The NFOIC can provide court fees and SPJ can assist with attorney fees. Both organizations also will use their combined national networks of journalists and citizens to apply public pressure to government agencies that flaunt the law.

“This is such an exciting collaborative project, one that will lend significant weight to our collective efforts in preserving our right of government oversight and accountability,” said Barbara Petersen, NFOIC president. “I’m honored to be part of it.”

As part of the partnership approved during national Sunshine Week, SPJ and NFOIC will:

• Have staff and volunteers from both organizations solicit applications and monitor public record battles at the state and federal levels for worthy cases. • Give priority to cases that a) have a strong legal basis, b) have the ability to establish good case law, and c) will help citizens and journalists, regardless of the profession or standing of the plaintiff. • Write or join amicus curiae briefs and/or intervene in cases where appropriate. • Coordinate publicity and advocacy. • Solicit other partners, when merited, such as state coalitions and other national access organizations.

“More than ever, it’s essential for groups to unite in helping citizens fight for government information,” said David Cuillier, SPJ Freedom of Information Committee chair. “Together we are much more powerful against a system that is not weighted in the public’s favor.”

The SPJ Legal Defense Fund was created in 1972 to fight for the First Amendment, primarily for public records and open meetings. Litigants apply for funds and the applications are considered by a six-member committee, aided by SPJ’s attorney. The committee can provide grants of up to $5,000, and larger amounts are considered by the SPJ Board of Directors. The fund has about $75,000 available, and is replenished by donations, interest and an annual auction. In 2014 the SPJ Board approved the creation of an endowed advocacy fund that can also be used for litigation. The endowment currently generates about $4,000 annually.

The Knight FOI Fund was created by NFOIC in 2010 through a grant from the Knight Foundation to help litigants fight for open government. The fund pays for court costs, filing fees, depositions and related expenses, typically $2,000-$3,000 per case. The fund, currently at $444,000, does not pay for attorney fees, nor dictate what attorney is used in the case. The fund stipulates that if the grantee wins and receives an award then they must repay NFOIC. A Litigation Committee decides the merits of applications.

Founded in 1909 as Sigma Delta Chi, SPJ promotes the free flow of information vital to a well-informed citizenry; works to inspire and educate the next generation of journalists; and protects First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and press. For more information about SPJ, please visit spj.org.

The National Freedom of Information Coalition is a national organization that supports our right to open government. Forty-four state and regional coalitions are currently connected through the NFOIC, representing a nonpartisan alliance promoting collaboration, education and advocacy for open government, transparency and freedom of information.

Jack Greiner: Arrest record may be erased by court, but not by media

By Jack Greiner, published in the Cincinnati Enquirer Most states have some form of an expungement statute. Subject to whatever conditions the applicable law requires, the statutes allow people to have an arrest removed from their record.

And once that happens, the person can truthfully tell prospective employers or colleges their record is clean. So in that respect, the expungement statutes rewrite official history. But that begs the question – what about “unofficial” but accurate accounts of the arrest? Are they affected by the law?

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently answered that question with a resounding “no.” As a result, a Connecticut resident was not able to compel the Hearst Corporation to erase from its online archives reports of the person’s arrest.

A woman named Lorraine Martin was arrested on multiple drug offenses in 2010. Several local newspapers published accurate reports about the incident. In 2012, the court dismissed the charges against Martin and ordered her record “erased” under the Connecticut Records Erasure Statute.

After the records were erased, Martin requested the newspapers take the 2010 articles off their Web sites. The newspapers refused, and Martin filed libel and false light claims against them. Martin’s theory was, given the erasure, which essentially established that the arrest never happened, the continued reporting on the arrest was false. Call it retroactive libel if you will. But whatever you call it, the trial court wasn’t impressed. It granted summary judgment in favor of the newspapers, and Martin appealed.

On appeal, the Second Circuit agreed the after-the-fact erasure of Martin's arrest could not create any civil liability on the part of media outlets that accurately reported on the arrest at the time it happened. While the statute creates a legal fiction, it does not alter historical fact.

The Second Circuit also found it significant that while the statute erases the record legally, it does not require the state to physically erase the record of related proceedings. Those records may still be used, for example, in a subsequent perjury action. In addition, the police may retain identification records such as photographs and fingerprints related to the arrest.

While the Second Circuit focused on a specific statute, the larger implication is that in the United States, courts are not likely to recognize a “right to be forgotten.”

Last year, a European court made big news when it recognized such a right and forced search engines like Google to eliminate links to accurate, but dated reports of a person’s previous legal troubles. It’s unlikely that concept will be imported here.

Otterbein University says attorney general gave poor records advice

From The Canton Repository A private Ohio college fighting the release of police records says the state attorney general gave it bad public-records advice, something the attorney general’s office disputes.

At issue is a lawsuit filed by a student journalist against Otterbein University asking for arrest records and other information.

Otterbein argues it is exempt from public-records laws as a private institution and federal law requires it to protect certain information about students from release.

In a filing last year, attorneys for the suburban Columbus school noted that private universities don’t have the same government immunity from defamation lawsuits that could arise if they were required to release the names of accused suspects.

The attorneys cite the case of former Xavier University basketball player Dez Wells, who was expelled over what he says was a false rape allegation. Last year, Wells settled his lawsuit, which had claimed Xavier and its president used him as a scapegoat to demonstrate an aggressive response to sexual assault allegations in the wake of two unrelated federal investigations.

Lawyers for the journalist in the Otterbein case say Wells’ lawsuit involved Xavier’s “University Conduct Board,” not its campus police department.

Student journalists at the liberal-arts college have battled Otterbein over the release of records since the campus security force became a full-fledged police department of state-certified officers in 2011.

College attorneys said in a court filing Wednesday they relied “to their detriment” on advice from the attorney general’s office at an open records training event that Otterbein’s police department is not subject to the open records law.

An assistant attorney general gave the advice in answering questions from college representatives, the filing said.

Otterbein’s attorneys aren’t commenting on how they believe that advice affects their case. The school’s security department became a police department in July 2011, and two representatives of the new department attended open records training offered by the attorney general’s office in November of that year.

But a spokesman for the attorney general’s office says it does not provide legal advice during such training. The office makes it clear to people attending the events to consult their lawyers about open records issues, added spokesman Dan Tierney.

Attorney General Mike DeWine believes records held by police departments at private institutions are public, Tierney said.

If the college misconstrued any statements during the training, “it can easily remedy the situation by immediately producing the public records sought in the lawsuit,” Tierney said in an email.

Rep. Bill Patmon, a Cleveland Democrat, has introduced a bill that would put under the open records law information held by police departments established by a private college or university.

Access denied: Reporters say federal officials, data increasingly off limits

From The Washington Post

Stacey Singer, a health reporter for the Palm Beach Post in Florida, was perusing a medical journal in 2012 when she came across something startling: a federal epidemiologist’s report about a tuberculosis outbreak in the Jacksonville area. Singer promptly began pursuing the story.

But when she started seeking official comment about the little-reported outbreak, the doors began closing. County health officials referred her to the state health department. State officials referred her to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even though the CDC’s own expert had written the investigative report, the agency’s press office declined to let Singer speak with him. A spokesman told her it was a local matter and sent her back to the state office in Tallahassee.

Through public records requests, Singer eventually was able to piece together the story of a contagion that had caused 13 deaths and 99 illnesses — the worst the CDC had found in 20 years.

“It’s really expensive to fight this hard” for public information, said Singer, now an editorial writer at the newspaper. She suspects that officials were slow to respond because news of the TB outbreak might have harmed Florida’s tourism industry. “They know that to delay is to deny. . . . They know we have to move on to other stories.”

The stories aren’t always as consequential or as dramatic as a TB outbreak, but Singer’s experience is shared by virtually every journalist on the government beat, from the White House on down. They can recite tales with similar outlines: An agency spokesman — frequently a political appointee — rejects the reporter’s request for interviews, offers partial or nonresponsive replies, or delays responding at all until after the journalist’s deadline has passed.

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Mason meeting raises questions of secrecy

From The Cincinnati Enquirer Should local governments be allowed to meet in secret to discuss economic incentives granted to private corporations?

That's the question some are asking after Mason's city council met March 17 in a closed-door session to discuss a $34 million incentives package for consumer product giant Procter & Gamble.

Legal experts say that when it comes to public tax breaks, deliberations of those matters should be subject to public scrutiny.

"When you don't take money from your businesses, you have to make up the funds elsewhere. That clearly is a matter of public debate and is certainly a matter of public interest," said Christo Lassiter, a law professor at the University of Cincinnati.

Some legal experts say the issue could be among the first to call into question the scope of a provision passed in the 2014-2015 state budget that created an exception to the state's Open Meetings Act.

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When strike ends, identities of replacement teachers are public record

Editor's Note: This is a very good open government decision. It should also be noted that OCOG contributed an amicus brief, crafted by Dave Marburger, to this case. From Court News Ohio

Five months after a contentious school strike ended, little evidence showed that the replacement teachers faced any serious threats of harm and their names could be released to the teacher’s union requesting their identities, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

The 5-2 ruling affirms the decision of the Eighth District Court of Appeals, which ordered the Strongsville City School District Board of Education to release the names of the teachers to David Quolke, president of the Cleveland Teacher’s Union. The per curiam decision also upheld the order to pay Quolke $7,973 for court costs and attorney fees.

Strike Starts Strongsville’s 385 teachers and other licensed personnel are represented by the Strongsville Education Association, which filed a notice to strike beginning March 4, 2013. On March 3, the school board began interviewing applicants for replacement teachers at Strongsville City Hall. About 75 to 100 people were chanting, jeering, and cursing the applicants as they exited the building, and school administrators led the applicants out the back door to their cars with a police escort.

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Chris Quinn: I wish Sunshine Week could evolve into an annual reminder of what government should be

By Chris Quinn, The Plain Dealer Sunshine Week concluded over the weekend, closing out a week of stories in the media about crumbling access to public records. I suspect most people skip over these stories, seeing the pieces not so much as public affairs reporting but as the annual whining of the media about its eternal battles with government.

Sadly, we in the media somehow have allowed this debate to be framed as the quarreling of two entities, the press and government, rather than a debate about how we choose to govern ourselves. We have let the framers of the debate portray the government as corporeal, as a functioning organism that is somehow apart from us.

I wish Sunshine Week could become an annual reminder that government is not independent of us. It is us. Remember what Lincoln said. Of the people. By the people. For the people. We send people to city halls, Columbus and Washington not to rule over us but to carry out our wishes, to provide the services that we as a community have determined we should provide to each other. Records created in pursuit of these goals do not belong to elected leaders. They are ours -- of us, by us and for us.

Imagine having a meeting in your household in which you elected to prohibit all family members from looking through your front window out on to whatever is happening on your street. Preposterous, right? That's what happens when our representatives vote to close off portions of public records. They are shuttering the windows through which we can see and assess the services we provide each other.

In one of those Sunshine Week pieces I mentioned earlier, Dennis Hetzel, executive director of the Ohio Newspaper Association, noted last week that the original public records law, passed in 1963, was two paragraphs long and contained few exceptions. Today, he noted, the law runs for 10 pages, and state code has at least 129 exemptions.

That's 129 times that our state legislators -- the people who are "of us" -- have closed windows through which we can review how we operate. The Ohio Supreme Court has closed even more windows with odd rulings, like one that lets government withhold records if requests are "overly broad." What that means is open to wide interpretation, and believe me, government interprets it widely, keeping secret no end of public information.

The records law in Ohio has become so complicated that it takes a good book to figure it out. That book, "Access with Attitude," by lawyer Dave Marburger and Kent State University Professor Karl Idsvoog, is the ideal antidote to secrecy and would be great reading for high school civics classes, where we might train future generations about their right to information.

The book is on the bookshelves of many a newsroom, as we in local news organizations do end up being the most frequent wagers of war on the public records front. Our founding fathers, in their infinite wisdom, institutionalized the notion of a free press, recognizing that the republic would not long survive without a protected entity independent of government to demand transparency of those we elect to represent us.

News organizations regularly must resort to lawsuits or threats of lawsuits to persuade elected leaders to obey laws about access. That's part of our duty in this community, one we perform proudly. Because we perform it so regularly, though, people have come to perceive that the records law is for the media, that Sunshine Week is about the media.

What Sunshine Week should be is a time to assess who we wish to be: people who govern ourselves with transparency and openness, or people who are governed by leaders who we allow to shutter our windows on the public services we pay taxes to fund.

Our windows keep closing. Every legislative sessions brings more proposals to close off parts of the public record.  If you think that transparency is the best way to guarantee honesty among those we elect, then the next time a candidate for Congress or the state Legislature is courting you for your vote, ask them to open some of those windows they have been so busy shuttering.

Tell them to let the sun shine in.

3 things to know about a key FOIA reform bill making its way through Congress

From Poynter A bill that would make significant changes to the Freedom of Information Act got a lift this morning when it was approved by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. This legislation represents the biggest amendment to America’s federal open records act since 2007 and comes months after a similar proposal failed to clear Congress near the end of last year.

Here’s what you need to know:

What’s it called? The FOIA Oversight and Implementation Act of 2015, or, if you prefer formal designations, H.R. 653.

What does it do? There are a number of provisions in the bill. Among them:

• Shines a light on old government deliberations. Want to know how the government made decisions in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis? This bill would modify a provision in the Freedom of Information Act that allows government agencies to withhold inter-agency memos and letters from the public, opening up records or information created more than 25 years ago.

  “If the only reason the government would deny a FOIA request is internal deliberations, if those internal deliberations are over 25 years old, then the government could no longer withhold that information,” said Rick Blum, director of the Sunshine in Government Initiative.

• Creates a presumption of openness. The bill would write into law the idea that government agencies should err on the side of disclosure when faced with a Freedom of Information Act request. This point has been interpreted differently by different presidential regimes who have directed officials to behave differently when members of the public ask for records, Blum said. The bill establishes a legal standard which requires agencies to justify a reason for refusing a request.
• Makes FOIA oversight more independent. This bill would take steps to ensure the autonomy of the Office for Government Information Services, which acts as a kind of ombudsman for the Freedom of Information Act. The office, which was created in 2007 to improve communication between requesters and federal agencies, periodically makes recommendations about how FOIA could be improved.These recommendations are currently submitted to federal agencies to ensure that they’re in line with the policy of the current presidential administration, Blum said. The proposed bill would allow these reports to be submitted directly to congressional committees and the president without review from any other federal agencies. This will likely make the FOIA ombudsman more transparent and candid about ways the act could be improved.

What happens next? A similar bill, S. 337, has been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. For the FOIA reform to become law, both measures must be passed by their respective houses and any differences between the two pieces of legislation must be resolved. The bill must then be signed into law by the president.

Mason council meeting legal?

From The Cincinnati Enquirer The city (of Mason) may have violated its own charter and state law when it met in a special meeting Tuesday to vote on a 15-year, $34 million tax incentive package for consumer product giant Procter & Gamble.

Legal experts say the city's special, mid-afternoon meeting held on a day's notice violated Ohio's Open Meetings Act because officials failed to provide the required notice indicating the purpose of the meeting, as well as the matters to be considered.

Mason's charter and state law require notices of special meetings to state the purpose of the meeting, and limits discussion to only those issues specified. Mason's charter further allows for discussion of an unlisted topic if five members of council agree to consider it.

On Monday, an administrative assistant with the city sent out a notice that Mason City Council would meet for a special meeting at 3 p.m. Tuesday. The notice did not specify why officials called the meeting or what they planned to discuss.

When an Enquirer reporter inquired about the meeting's purpose, the city staff member advised only that council anticipated going immediately into executive session. Under Ohio law, executive sessions are secret and not required to be recorded or minutes taken.

When council met Tuesday, it immediately adjourned into executive session, then came out and held the vote on the ordinance approving the financial package offered to P&G for its $300 million investment to expand its Mason Business Center.

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Editorial: Sunshine Week highlights need for greater government transparency

Editorial from The Plain Dealer This is not Sunshine Week because the gray skies are parting and the temperatures have begun to rise. It's because this is the time of the year designated to promote transparency in government. Clearly, some of that is needed.

The more enlightened a society becomes, the more government officials should realize the importance of open meetings and open records.

Sadly, that hasn't always been the case, as recent events at the federal, state and local levels have shown.

The Obama administration has been criticized frequently for its failure to release records under the Freedom of Information Act. The Associated Press recently reported that, in 2014, the federal government wound up reversing on appeal, at least in part, one in three of the FOIA requests it initially denied.

And in Ohio, a new law misguidedly keeps the names of lethal-injection drug providers secret under the dubious claim that nobody would provide the drugs if their names were made public.

Condemned inmates pressing an appeal of their sentences and the general public concerned about the costs, quality and efficacy of drugs used in capital punishment have a right to know this information.

And in South Euclid, five members of its City Council recently censured two of their fellow council members for publicly discussing, as they asserted, a matter brought to their attention in executive session that concerned the hiring of the mayor's son by a law firm doing business with the city. The two reprimanded council members believed rightly that the matter should have been discussed openly.

That incident highlights the potential for government boards of all stripes in Ohio to abuse the use of executive sessions to avoid political embarrassment or some other undesired fallout from public disclosure.

As Dennis Hetzel, director of the Ohio Newspaper Association, suggests, rather than err on the side of transparency, government officials too often search for reasons to keep information secret.

Still, some are doing it right. Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel recently put Ohio's expenditures online at OhioCheckbook.com and Ohio Auditor Dave Yost continues to believe that he should be allowed to audit JobsOhio, the state's quasi-private development arm that relies on state liquor revenue for its funding.

Government officials are great at coming up with reasons to hide what they do, and they often claim that it's for the greater good of the people, but in very few instances can that case be convincingly made.

Justices say prosecutor can’t shield 911 call from Ohio newspaper

Editor's Note: The Ohio Coalition for Open Government filed an amicus brief in support of the Enquirer's lawsuit. From The Columbus Dispatch

A recording of a 911 dispatcher’s outgoing call is a public record, the Ohio Supreme Court said yesterday in a ruling that criticized a prosecutor for trying to keep a newspaper from hearing it.The court’s 6-1 decision came in the case of a southwestern Ohio dispatcher’s return call in 2012 to a man who then confessed to fatally stabbing his stepfather.The ruling was a victory for The Cincinnati Enquirer, which sued Butler County Prosecutor Michael Gmoser over his contention that the call was a confidential investigatory record. Gmoser also argued the recording’s release could affect defendant Michael Ray’s right to a fair trial.

Justice Judith L. French, writing for the majority, said Gmoser failed to show that releasing the record would violate the U.S. Constitution or state law.

French said there’s no evidence the dispatcher returned the call and asked questions to prepare for a criminal proceeding. As a result, the recording could not become evidence just because it moved from the dispatcher’s office “to the prosecutor’s file,” French said.

French also said The Enquirer should be awarded attorneys’ fees and ordered a lower-court hearing to determine the amount.

Not only did Gmoser not have authority to withhold the call, he made things worse by asking a judge for a protective order keeping the call from being made public.

That action forced the newspaper into “a two-front war” as it sought the recording while defending itself against the protective order, French said.

“These tactics do not demonstrate good faith by the prosecutor’s office,” the justice wrote.

Justice Paul Pfeifer, who has argued in the past for limits on releases of 911 calls, said the recording was part of the prosecutor’s evidence and shouldn’t be made public.

Ray, 20, is serving a 15-year sentence for murder, according to prison records.

Updated Sunshine laws manual now online

From The Columbus Dispatch The updated owner’s guide to public-records and open-meeting laws in Ohio was released today by the office of Attorney General Mike DeWine.

The so-called "Yellow Book" is updated annually and released during Sunshine Week to reflect changes in law and court rulings during the past year.

“The ‘Yellow Book’ is published to help requesters understand their rights and for government agencies to understand their obligations under Ohio’s Sunshine Laws,” DeWine said in a release. “ Knowing what is required when you submit or receive a records request is the easiest way to eliminate records disputes and to promote open, transparent government.”

You can download a copy of Ohio Sunshine Laws: An Open Government Resource Manual from the AG's website.

It's one of the best resources available for those who want to know and exercise their rights to government access.

If denied records, quoting from the Sunshine manual is pretty powerful tool in pressing your argument for records that have been delayed or denied.

DeWine’s office's also offers a voluntary public-records mediation program that gives citizens and local governments alike a chance to settle disputes by working with state lawyers well versed in Sunshine laws.

Other online resources include a series of informational videos on the state's Sunshine laws and a three-hour version of the open-government training required of all public officeholders and available to the public.

Editorial: Sunshine Week is a reminder that government belongs to us

Editorial from The Vindicator

Almost everyone knows about Groundhog Day on Feb. 2. Far fewer know what comes about six weeks later, whether or not Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow: Sunshine Week.

To be fair, Phil has been around a lot longer. Sunshine Week, a project of the American Society of News Editors, is just 10 years old. But to those who care about how government operates, Sunshine Week should be important 52 weeks of the year.

Open records and public meetings laws have been called “Sunshine Laws” for decades. Sunshine is an apt metaphor because good government grows only when the light shines on what elected officials and government bureaucrats are doing.

Ohio has had a strong sunshine law on the books since the 1970s, but over the years it has been weakened more often than strengthened by amendments and court rulings. Last year we bemoaned an Ohio Supreme Court ruling that made it easier for recalcitrant public servants to avoid having to pay damages after blocking access to public records.

This year, while all the news is not good, it must be noted that Treasurer Josh Mandel has the Online Checkbook up and running, which provides easy access to information about how Ohio is spending the billions of dollars it collects from taxpayers. Log on to OhioCheckbook.com.

Attorney general’s seminars

Attorney General Mike DeWine continues to conduct seminars around the state for public officials and any interested individuals on what Ohio’s sunshine laws require, how officials must follow the law and what people can do when government falls short of being open.

And just the other day, Auditor Dave Yost announced a new program aimed at helping people resolve public records complaints without having to hire a lawyer. That’s an important advance, especially given the Supreme Court ruling we mentioned earlier.

Yost, Mandel and DeWine are all Republicans.

That said, it doesn’t take much effort to think of examples over recent months that prove too many local officials still haven’t grasped the essential concept of Ohio’s Sunshine Laws: That when there is doubt, the law should be liberally construed toward openness.

That principle is clearly stated in the law, and yet time and again officeholders, officials and employees chose to go the opposite way. They take the position that someone asking for a record must prove they are entitled to it, though the law clearly states that someone seeking a record need not give a reason and need not identify himself or herself.

Sunshine requests have been in the local news in the last month after The Vindicator requested salary information for employees in former Mahoning County Auditor Michael Sciortino’s office, for instance. Or when the paper requested information after the Youngstown Board of Education summarily replaced two representatives to the Academic Distress Commission.

Nationally, news organizations are in constant battle with the federal government for access to information that should be made readily available to the people.

Gary Pruitt, president and CEO of the Associated Press, says it’s getting harder and more expensive to gain access to public records.

One example:

“A few months ago, the Treasury Department sent us 237 pages in its latest response to our requests regarding Iran trade sanctions. Nearly all 237 pages were completely blacked out, on the basis that they contained businesses’ trade secrets.

“When was our request made? Nine years ago.”

After five years of trying to get access to files covering Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, the AP finally filed suit.

White House pettiness

President Barack Obama promised transparency when he came to office, but clearly hasn’t delivered on matters large and small. As an example of how petty things can become, Pruitt tells this story:

“In government emails that AP obtained in reporting about who pays for Michelle Obama’s expensive dresses, the National Archives and Records Administration blacked out one sentence repeatedly, citing a part of the law intended to shield personal information such as Social Security numbers or home addresses.

“The blacked-out sentence? The government slipped and let it through on one page of the redacted documents: ‘We live in constant fear of upsetting the WH (White House).’”

Public servants — from local clerks to the president of the United States — have to learn that sometimes they are going to be embarrassed by the release of public documents. Their sense of fear or anger or frustration does not trump the law.

And though we say it often, it bears repeating: Public records and open meetings laws may be most often pursued by the press, but the laws are there for the use of everyone who wants to hold government accountable. The sun shouldn’t shine from only one direction.

Attorney: South Range Board of Education violated state Sunshine Laws

From The Vindicator

The South Range Board of Education violated state law by appointing Amy White to its board, the attorney representing The Vindicator said today.

The board unanimously approved White’s nomination Monday night, as a gold and black metallic nameplate for her sat before the vacant seat on the board.

While the board met in executive session last week to discuss the replacement, “A public body may not take any formal action, such as voting or otherwise reaching a collective decision, in an executive session. Any formal action taken in an executive session is invalid,” states the Ohio Sunshine Laws.

Ironically, this is Sunshine Week in Ohio, and Attorney General Mike DeWine issued the 2015 edition of “Ohio Sunshine Laws: An Open Government Resource Manual” on Monday. It is available in .pdf form at Vindy.com.

“The whole circumstance sounds to me that there would be clear evidence that the decision was already made, and taking a formal vote before the public was just theater,” said Atty. David Marburger for the newspaper. The nameplate itself, he argued, is “just the clearest evidence. ... The most troubling part is what that represents."