Butler County prosecutor loses in Enquirer legal fees case – again

From The Cincinnati Enquirer Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser clearly does not want to have to pay attorneys who work for The Enquirer. But now he may have to.

The situation stems from the case of Michael Ray, who is in prison in connection with the death of his stepfather on Father’s Day in 2012.

The Butler County Sheriff's Office released an incoming 911 call from the day of the killing. But Gmoser denied The Enquirer’s request for the recording of an outgoing call a 911 dispatcher made, saying it would affect the suspect's right to a fair trial.

Ray, who has since been convicted of murder, told the dispatcher, “I’m a murderer, and you need to arrest me.”

He said he had stabbed his stepfather after the stepfather had found Ray drinking.

Gmoser later asked the judge assigned to the case to block the release of the recording, which the judge did.

The Ohio Supreme Court criticized Gmoser’s actions, saying it “only served to saddle The Enquirer with more litigation and more attorney fees.”

“Those tactics,” the Supreme Court’s opinion said, “do not demonstrate good faith by the prosecutor’s office.”

The Enquirer sued successfully, and the court ruled the prosecutor must pay $25,462.80 of taxpayers' money for The Enquirer's attorney fees.

Gmoser does not want to pay them. So he appealed, claiming the amount was excessive.

He lost, in a ruling handed down last week.

Now, The Enquirer is asking for more money in compensation for the additional litigation caused by the prosecutor's appeal.

Enquirer Attorney Jack Greiner said Gmoser's appeal was frivolous.

Gmoser did not return a message left by an Enquirer reporter seeking comment.

Ohio again top state for spending transparency

From The Columbus Dispatch Ohio has repeated as the top state for public spending transparency, according to an annual report today by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

“Following the Money 2016” ranked Ohio No. 1 for the second year in a row, largely as a result of OhioCheckbook.com, the online spending database hosted by state Treasurer Josh Mandel.

Ohio was one of four states to achieve a perfect 100-point score on the U.S. PIRG report, but was ranked first due to additional criteria. Also receiving perfect scores were Michigan, Indiana and Oregon. California, Alaska and Idaho received “F” grades and were at the bottom of transparency rankings.

U.S. PIRG based its ratings on the state websites and how easy, or difficult, it is for taxpayers to get detailed information on government spending.

Ohio got high marks for adding municipalities, other local government entities, and schools to the OhioCheckbook.com website. Of the 3,962 local government and schools in Ohio, about 650 have signed up for the online checkbook, Mandel said in a conference call this morning.

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Ohio's auditor gets legal OK to audit university foundations

From The Columbus Dispatch State Auditor Dave Yost has received legal approval to perform financial audits of Ohio college and university foundations, which raise and spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

A legal opinion from state Attorney General Mike DeWine, dated Wednesday, concluded that state law permits Yost to audit the foundations because, even though most of them are private, nonprofit corporations, they collect money on behalf of and distribute money to public colleges and universities

DeWine said in the opinion that the auditor has the right to audit the foundations because they are "established by the laws of this state for the exercise of a function of government, and are therefore, a public office."

Yost sought a legal opinion from DeWine after encountering objections from some state universities about whether their respective university foundations are subject to review by the auditor. Youngstown State, in particular, raised an objection and hired legal counsel to oppose the auditor.

"We decided it was best for all parties to seek clarity from the attorney general about the auditor’s ability to review the financial operations of university foundations," said Ben Marrison, Yost's communications director.

Yost said in a statement: “We are pleased, but not surprised, that the attorney general agrees that these funds — collected on behalf of universities to benefit universities — are public dollars and subject to the scrutiny of state auditors.”

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How is the government spending your money? Ohio's figured it out

From The Washington Examiner Ohio in 2014 launched a searchable database of the state's expenditures, allowing residents to browse how their money was being spent by both the state and participating local governments. Government watchdogs view it as a model for something that could be applied across the nation.

"It's a transparency initiative rooted in the concept of making the government small and the individual big," said Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, who launched OhioCheckBook.com through his office.

The site, which allows users to search how government is spending money on things like food and travel, has been a hit in the state: Mandel notes that since its launch 16 months ago, 611 local governments and school districts in the state have volunteered to participate. From Dec. 2, 2014, to March 24, 2016, citizens had used the site to search through government expenditures exactly 488,937 times.

"In a simplified way, it's essentially QuickBooks for government," Mandel said.

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Bill would give private universities protection

From Dayton Daily News Private universities are pushing for protections from lawsuits stemming from a requirement that they now make records from their police forces available to the public.

State Rep. Kirk Schuring, R-Canton, has submitted a bill that would give private institutions such as the University of Dayton and Wittenberg University the same legal protections afforded to public colleges and universities.

“If you’re doing what the law requires you to do, there should be some protection for those who claim they were defamed or libeled,” Schuring said this week.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled last year that if private police departments operate with all of the powers of regular police — replete with badge, gun and arrest powers — they need to make incident, arrest and investigative reports available to the public.

Prior to that, police departments such as UD’s would release only scant details of reported crimes and full details only when someone was charged in court.

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Federal appeals court in Ohio says plea agreements should be open

From The Akron Beacon Journal A Cincinnati-based federal appeals court says plea agreements should be open records under the First Amendment unless there is some overriding interest in closing them.

A three-judge panel from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals makes that statement in a ruling affirming a man’s 2014 sentencing on cocaine distribution-related charges.

While upholding the sentences, the judges sent the case back to U.S. district court in Akron to address its order on allowing public access to the defendant’s plea agreement.

The opinion written by Judge Richard Allen Griffin stated that the public has a constitutional right to access plea agreements, and that they “play a central role in our criminal justice system.” He wrote that courts need to show that closure is essential for higher values and is narrowly tailored.

Democrats again target JobsOhio for transparency

From The Columbus Dispatch Democrats are making another run at reforming JobsOhio.

A pair of House Democrats today introduced a bill to bring more transparency to the operations of Republican Gov. John Kasich’s privatized economic development agency.

The “Ohio Jobs Guarantee” from Reps. Greta Johnson, of Akron, and Kent Smith, of Euclid, would authorize the state auditor to go over JobsOhio’s books and require the nonprofit to release more-detailed quarterly reports on job projects underwritten by grants and loans.

The replacement for the public Department of Development was exempted from public-records laws when it was created and Auditor Dave Yost, after auditing JobsOhio once, was barred by Republican lawmakers from examining its financials.

JobsOhio, which makes its cash from a long-term lease of the state’s liquor-sales operation, should be open to public examination and oversight, the lawmakers said. “JobsOhio doesn’t have to tell us anything. That’s bad economic policy and it’s just plain wrong,” Smith said in a statement.

JobsOhio reported bringing in a record number of jobs last year ( and awarding CEO John Minor Jr. a 38-percent raise to $455,000), but Democrats contend the number could be higher and better-paying.

“This is because a ‘private’ entity is making those decisions behind closed doors. From the direction of Gov. Kasich, the state legislature decided at its inception that JobsOhio should not be held accountable to our state’s taxpaying citizens. The time to correct this wrongdoing is long overdue,” Johnson said.

Kasich spokesman Joe Andrews held little back in response to the legislation, saying the governor was proud of JobsOhio and its record that has helped create more than 417,000 jobs during Kasich's tenure.

"While it’s clear these lawmakers want to play politics with improvements they can’t take credit for, they obviously have very short memories, forgetting that it was their party’s leaders who drove Ohio over the cliff and lost 350,000 jobs.  They have little room to criticize the tools Ohio has used to undo their damage," Andrews said.

JobsOhio spokesman Nicholas D'Angelo said: "JobsOhio’s finances, operations and practices are subject to rigorous oversight and review processes and JobsOhio is among the most transparent private companies in Ohio. JobsOhio is subject to an annual financial audit, which is completed by a nationally recognized accounting firm." The nonprofit also releases quarterly data and reports to the public, he said.

Ohio Supreme Court rules in Aultman medical records case

From The Beacon Journal The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that all documents Aultman Hospital generated in the care of a patient qualify as a medical record, a decision attorneys say will have statewide ramifications in the release of such information.

The state's high court issued the ruling Wednesday in a lawsuit filed by the daughter of a patient treated at the Canton hospital before he died. The case had been decided in Stark County Common Pleas Court before the 5th District Court of Appeals affirmed that ruling. In a 5-2 decision, the Ohio Supreme Court reversed the appeals decision that had limited the information to what was maintained by Aultman's medical records department.

A majority of the justices said the definition of a medical record is not limited to the information maintained by a hospital or other healthcare provider's medical records department. The ruling also said the physical location of where the data is stored does not determine if the information qualifies as a medical record.

The ruling and related state law pertains to medical records sought by a patient or his or her legal representative. The case is being sent back to the Stark County trial court.

"It has huge ramifications for patients' Right to Know throughout Ohio and prevents any hospital from concealing or artificially classifying medical records," said Lee Plakas of Canton, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiff in the lawsuit brought against Aultman in 2012 in an effort to force the hospital to produce the complete medical record.

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Sunshine Week coverage in Ohio newspapers

Sunshine Week ran from March 13 to 19, 2016. Many thanks to all the ONA member papers who published news and opinion pieces about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Below is a partial listing of open government articles and editorials published in Ohio newspapers during Sunshine Week.

Akron Beacon Journal

• Editorial: Be open about public records

Canton Repository

• Editorial: Celebrating victories, lamenting setbacks of government transparency
• Sunshine in Schools: Here are the public records you can request from your school

Chillicothe Gazette

• Chillicothe Gazette uses public records to tell powerful story about drug raid gone bad

Columbus Dispatch

• Editorial: Clouds over Sunshine Week
• Many state legislatures exempt themselves from records laws
• Ohio’s public universities often balk at providing public records

Gallipolis Daily Tribune

• Ohio AG releases 2016 ‘Yellow Book’

Gongwer

• Yost: First year of Sunshine Audit Program a ‘small but significant success’; DeWine releases new Open Records Manual

Highland County Press

• Editorial: Sunshine Week

The Lantern

• Ohio State works to improve response to public records requests

Morrow County Sentinel

• Sunshine Week: Protecting Ohioans’ right to know

Toledo Blade

• Editorial: Bring the sunshine
• Auditor says he can help in ‘sunshine’ disputes; so far, few Ohioans have used program

The Vindicator

• Open-government forecast: Cloudy conditions persist

Cleveland Public Power says you have no right to know what you're paying for; bills are 'trade secrets'

From The Plain Dealer Cleveland Public Power customers, you've probably wondered how the city-owned utility calculates that mysterious "energy adjustment charge" you see on your bill.

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Beacon Journal editorial: Be open about public records

From The Beacon Journal

The past week marked Sunshine Week, celebrating the public’s right to know. In Columbus, Dave Yost marked the occasion by reviewing the first year of a worthy program to give citizens greater access to public records. The state auditor’s Sunshine Audit initiative provides an avenue to resolve unfulfilled public records requests short of going to court.

What Yost rightly recognizes is that most citizens find filing a lawsuit an insurmountable barrier, the time and expense necessary to pry loose records too great. Ohioans now can file a complaint with the auditor’s office, which then examines the situation and issues a nonbinding determination. The auditor cannot levy a fine, but a determination by his office can provide an incentive to act. The determination can be used as evidence in court, where it is given a presumption of validity.

In the first year of the program, 16 complaints of records not being released were investigated, what Yost accurately termed a “small but significant success.” No doubt, as he suspects, there are more cases out there. As the program becomes better known, more are sure to surface. Of the 16 complaints, government entities were found to be compliant with the law eight times. Five released records after state auditors asked about them, and three were found not to have complied. No lawsuits have been filed.

Unfortunately, the Yost program almost was blocked before it got started. Cliff Rosenberger, the House speaker, and Ryan Smith, the chairman of the Finance Committee, said the initiative was out of bounds. The challenge to the authority of the auditor’s office was itself out of bounds. Checking compliance with public records law had been part of the state auditor’s job for decades.

No further challenges have been made, the auditor proving successful in fighting off the ill-founded threat to the independence of his office and the separation of powers in state government.

Mike DeWine also recognized Sunshine Week. The state attorney general released the 2016 edition of a manual for public records compliance, usually referred to as the Yellow Book. A substantial number of disputes over access to public records, he noted, arise because one of the parties doesn’t understand his or her obligations for either making or filling a public records request.

DeWine’s office also runs a mediation process, a step that must be taken by citizens blocked from access to local government records before contacting the auditor’s office. Complaints about state agencies go directly to the auditor.

The Yost program is a step in the right direction. In too many instances, the state legislature has weakened Ohio’s public records law. JobsOhio, an entire agency, has been exempted, a fight Yost lost. Such actions deprive citizens of information they need to make decisions in a democracy or about actions conducted by government in their name.

Yost: First year of Sunshine Audit Program a ‘small but significant success'; DeWine releases new Open Records Manual

From Gongwer In the Sunshine Audit initiative's first year, the state auditor's office investigated 16 complaints about public entities not releasing public records, Auditor Dave Yost announced Monday.

Launched last year during Sunshine Week, the program was designed to give citizens a way to appeal rejections of public record requests without having to go through a long legal process.

Auditor Yost

"We didn't have a whole lot of takers," Mr. Yost said at a Statehouse news conference, calling the initiative's first year a "small but significant success."

The office investigated 16 complaints and declined to investigate one because it was too complex, he said in presenting the report on the program's first year. The office only audits complaints that are expected to take fewer than five work hours for staff.

"While I don't think that there's necessarily huge noncompliance, I know that there's more than the 17 cases that we have here in our first year," Mr. Yost said. "I would hope that folks who feel like they've been wrongly denied public records would avail themselves of the mediation process that's in the attorney general's office and our compliance work in the Auditor's office."

For cases involving local government entities, the complainants are first required to attempt themediation process through the attorney general's office. For those involving state agencies, the complaints start with the auditor's office.

The program stirred some controversy when it was introduced last year. Some legislators said they didn't believe the state auditor had the authority to look at public records compliance, and inserted language into the budget bill (HB 64) to try to stop the program. The language was later removed. (See Gongwer Ohio Report, April 20, 2015)

Mr. Yost said he didn't know of any current efforts to stop the program, but he wants to make sure citizens have a venue to appeal rejections before they reach the judicial system.

"Frankly, I'm glad to step aside if there's a proper mechanism to resolve this," he said. "The reason we did this is because right now, if you get stonewalled as a citizen on a public records request, the only thing you can do is go get a lawyer and go to court. If you're not independently wealthy and have plenty of time to burn, you're out of luck."

"If the legislature develops a non-litigious process that is simple and is open to the average Joe who is just trying to find out what his government is up to, that's great," he added.

Of the 16 complaints investigated, eight were found to be compliant with the law in rejecting the requests, five were initially noncompliant with the law but released the records properly after auditors asked about it, and three were found to be noncompliant.

The noncompliance in these audits will show up on future financial audits, but the finding doesn't come with a lot of teeth, Auditor Yost said. The findings can be used in court and are given a presumption of validity, but none of the cases have led to legal action so far.

Those found noncompliant were the Department of Agriculture, which failed to respond to the auditor's request for its position on the complaint, according to the auditor's office; the City of Beachwood, which was found noncompliant because some redactions of the mayor's calendar were unsupported by law; and the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, which Auditor Yost said wrongly cited attorney-client privilege.

Attorney-client privilege can only be cited in certain situations, not just when there's a lawyer in the room, he said. It can only be cited when the attorney has created a work product or has given legal advice.

"One of the frustrations I've had with our first year here is that it's difficult to establish whether attorney-client privilege is valid or not," he said.

Citizens can submit complaints and learn more about Sunshine Audits online.

New Yellow Book: Attorney General Mike DeWine also marked Sunshine Week by releasing the 2016 edition of his office's manual regarding public records laws, commonly known as the "Yellow Book."

"A substantial number of public records disputes arise because one of the parties involved is not aware of their obligations when a request is made," Mr. DeWine said in a statement. "The 'Yellow Book' is published to help requesters understand their rights and for government agencies to understand their duties under Ohio's Sunshine Laws."

The AG's office also announced training sessions on public records across the state, which are also available as an online video course.

Biennial Open Government Survey results

From The NFOIC Happy Sunshine Week! Please see below the executive summary and findings of the fourth Biennial Open Government Survey. The biennial survey began in 2009 as a joint effort between NFOIC and the Media Law Resource Center. We are happy to have the members of the Investigative Reporters and Editors join for this recent survey. Thank you for taking time to contribute your responses and feel free to redistribute or post to your constituents. As you will see, there is still much to be done to remove the obstacles and the disturbing trends gleaned from this survey.

Web links:

Exec Summary: http://www.nfoic.org/2015-biennial-open-government-survey-results-troubling

Findings (.pptx file) http://www.nfoic.org/sites/default/files/NOG_2015a.pptx

Information and resources for Sunshine Week, March 13 to 19, 2016

Sunshine Week runs from March 13 to 19, 2016. ONA member papers are encouraged to publish news and opinion pieces about the importance of open government and freedom of information. To help our members, ONA has compiled the following information and resources related to Sunshine Week.

Sunshine Week toolkit

• The main Sunshine Week website has a useful toolkit newspapers may use including opinion pieces, editorial cartoons, and reporting packages.

Sunshine week information from the National Freedom of Information Coalition

• NFOIC has posted a Sunshine Week web page and a page on related affiliate SW events on the web site. In addition, NFOIC worked closely with the AP and journalist David Lieb on this year’s reporting package feature, “Statehouse Secrecy”, with an expected publication date March 14, 2016.

Sunshine Week meme

The Colorado Press Association has created a new advertising meme promoting Sunshine Week and is allowing ONA member papers to use this ad both in print and online. Papers can easily drop their logo into the ad, which is available as a PDF download or by downloading the JPEG image above. To see what the ad looks like with a newspaper logo, download this PDF.

Media coalition calls on Senate to enact FOIA reforms

From The NAA A coalition composed of newspaper, media and journalist organizations to promote transparency in government, The Sunshine in Government Initiative, of which NAA is a member, sent a letter to Senators ahead of national Sunshine Week, which is set for March 13-19, 2016. The letter asks the Senators to support FOIA reforms (in the form of the FOIA Improvement Act, S. 337) that would enhance government transparency and accountability. The 50th anniversary of FOIA is July 4, 2016.

The press release is below and also available at: http://sunshineingovernment.org/wordpress/2016/03/08/press-release-media-coalition-asks-every-senator-to-support-foia-reform-ahead-of-2016-sunshine-week/

The letter is available at: http://sunshineingovernment.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/SGI-letter-to-sponsors-S337-March2016.pdf

It took a FOIA lawsuit to uncover how the Obama administration killed FOIA reform

From VICE News The Obama administration has long called itself the most transparent administration in history. But newly released Department of Justice (DOJ) documents show that the White House has actually worked aggressively behind the scenes to scuttle congressional reforms designed to give the public better access to information possessed by the federal government.

The documents were obtained by the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports journalism in the public interest, which in turn shared them exclusively with VICE News. They were obtained using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) — the same law Congress was attempting to reform. The group sued the DOJ last December after its FOIA requests went unanswered for more than a year.

The documents confirm longstanding suspicions about the administration's meddling, and lay bare for the first time how it worked to undermine FOIA reform bills that received overwhelming bipartisan support and were unanimously passed by both the House and Senate in 2014 — yet were never put up for a final vote.

Moreover, a separate set of documents obtained by VICE News in response to a nearly two-year-old FOIA request provides new insight into how the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also tried to disrupt Congress's FOIA reform efforts, which would have required those agencies to be far more transparent when responding to records requests.

The disclosures surface days before Sunshine Week, an annual celebration of open government, and a renewed effort by the House and Senate to improve the FOIA by enacting the very same reforms contained in the earlier House and Senate bills — the seventh attempt in at least 10 years by lawmakers to amend the transparency law. But the administration is again working to derail the legislation, according to congressional staffers.

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With Sunshine Week approaching, test your First Amendment knowledge

From The Kentucky Press Association You probably haven’t given much thought, yet, to Sunshine Week, the time we set aside to show how important open government and Freedom of Information is. But it is coming up — March 13-19.

And it all centers around the First Amendment. So to get you ready for Sunshine Week 2016, here’s a little test of your First Amendment knowledge, found on the SchoolJournalism.org website. Give it a try or test your fellow workers http://www.splc.org/page/first-amendment-quiz

Sunshine Week is a national initiative to promote a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include news media, civic groups, libraries, nonprofits, schools and others interested in the public’s right to know. In 2015, Sunshine Week celebrated 10 years of success in promoting greater government transparency, in both actual practice and in general awareness of its importance. Hosted by the American Society of News Editors and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, http://sunshineweek.org provides participants with myriad resources in the Toolkit section, including the newly created list of open-government questions that journalists can ask federal candidates. Op-eds, editorial cartoons and Sunshine Week logos are also part of the toolkit. The website also features FOI story ideas and Sunshine Week past work, as well as a list of participants and a calendar of events. ASNE launched Sunshine Week in 2005 as a national initiative to promote a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants have included print, broadcast and digital media outlets; government officials at all levels; schools and universities; nonprofit and civic organizations; libraries and archivists; and individuals interested in the public’s right to know. Since 2012, ASNE has partnered with the Reporters Committee to oversee the national coordination of resources and provide support for participants.

Josh Mandel, Kasich administration battle over public spending websites

From The Plain Dealer Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel has spent the last year touting his effort to put all state expenditures online at OhioCheckbook.com. But a competing website from Gov. John Kasich's budget office is in the works.

In addition to showing state agency expenditures, the new site from the Office of Budget and Management will show where the money came from, such as sales tax or federal grants. Its release could reopen the debate over who should publicly post the data.

Budget Director Tim Keen said Mandel's checkbook doesn't give enough context to state spending and shouldn't be part of the treasurer's duties.

"State budgets are not just about spending," Keen said in an interview.

How is the budget website different from OhioCheckbook.com? 

The budget office has been working on this for about two years -- before Mandel unveiled his checkbook. The interactive budget is in its final stages of testing and is expected to launch in April.

Like OhioCheckbook.com, the interactive budget will allow people to search by agency or vendor to find out how taxpayer dollars were spent.

Both sites use data from the Ohio Administrative Knowledge System to show checkbook-level spending and can display information by agency, department or line item over several years.

But the interactive budget also shows state revenue, how money was initially appropriated, and how those appropriations changed through later legislation or executive action.

That means visitors will be able to see how much money an agency was allowed to spend, how much they have spent and how much remains.

Keen said the interactive budget provides more valuable context than "some other displays."

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Column: Why openness is important in meetings and officials

By Reuben Mees, Bellefontaine Examiner Trust.

If a public body and its officials want citizens to trust them with their hard-earned tax dollars, the safety of their families and general health and well-being of the community, they have to be open.

People want to know how their money is being spent and why.

And they want — no, they deserve — to know who is spending that money and making the decisions that impact their families, homes and daily lives.

The State of Ohio has a set of laws in place called the Ohio Sunshine Laws that are intended to protect Ohioans’ right to know what is happening in their government.

Just this week, a small village in Logan County flaunted those laws.

Specifically, the Rushsylvania Village Council wanted to go into executive session to discuss which of two respectable village residents to appoint to a vacancy on council.

I, as a news reporter for the Bellefontaine Examiner and as an Ohioan who advocates for openness in government, objected to the executive session on the principle that it involved naming one of the people who make laws.

While the Ohio Sunshine Laws are a very valuable tool to protect Ohio citizens’ right to know, they are not perfect and are often subject to legal reviews. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of attorney general opinions and court decisions levied on the various issues involving open meetings and public records.

There is one area in particular that I have yet to see a clear and concise opinion on, however.

That is whether a public body has a right to enter into executive session to name a person to its own ranks. That is, can an elected official discuss in secret what would otherwise be decided by voters in an open election.

The law is clear that a public body cannot remove a fellow elected official from office in a secret meeting.

So, my belief in the spirit of the law is that they should not be installed in secrecy either.

Various lawyers have agreed or disagreed with my opinion on the matter, but I have yet to see case law clearly spelling it out.

The argument hinges on whether an elected official is an employee of the public agency. My opinion is that they are not employees but they are the public entity itself.

So that leaves it up to lawyers to decide what will be done.

In the case at Rushsylvania, the village’s lawyer is new to the job and was not equipped with a ready answer. She asked for up to a week to look into the legal issue. Council begrudgingly granted that week reprieve.

The law does say, however, that executive sessions are only an option. Barring situations where federal law prohibits release of certain information, a public body is always allowed to discuss an issue in public, which is referred to as erring on the side of openness.

The nice thing about erring on the side of openness is that it can very rarely get a public body into trouble. An error on the side of secrecy, however, can warrant a $500 fine and other penalties.

The only reason the Rushsylvania Village Council had for going into executive session on who would be the next council member was to iron out how they were going to vote before they did so.

It was clear both candidates appeared qualified for the job, had submitted resumes for the position and had addressed council briefly. What council members wanted was a chance to gauge how the other members would vote and cast their own votes accordingly. And that smacks of everything the open meetings law is intended to guard against.

So after granting their lawyer a reprieve to look into the issue, council was facing a week in which they could have gone behind the back of the law and gauged each other’s opinions in one-on-one encounters — also a no-no in open government.

But the leaders of Rushsylvania didn’t even have the decency to do that.

Instead, they adjourned their meeting and nervously hovered about the table as I intentionally stalled for one or more them to leave. They continued to hover about their chairs. It was clear they wanted me — the only representative of the public at the meeting — to leave the room and leave them alone.

So, I did leave, but I intentionally left the door open on my way out. No sooner had I crossed the threshold of the room and the door slid shut. I didn’t even have to leave the foyer (for want of a better word) before the illegal meeting began. I pulled up a spot on a five-gallon bucket and listened as they proceeded to discuss the very thing they agreed not to.

It was appalling, to say the least ... a slap in the face to everything that open government is supposed to protect. They could have at least given their lawyer a week to make a recommendation.

Watching the elected officials filing out of the room was shameful — heads hung low when they realized the reporter sitting outside the whole time had caught them in the act.

If I were a vindictive person, I might request that a court impose a $500 fine on the Rushsylvania Village Council for violation of the open meetings law, but that serves no purpose other than to waste the hard-earned money of the Rushsylvania taxpayer whose interests I try to protect.

Instead, I’ll let this be a warning that the public does care what happens behind closed doors — even in small towns like Rushsylvania.

Ohio Supreme Court shields data on homes of kids with lead poisoning

From The Columbus Dispatch A law firm submitted too broad a records request when it asked for data on residences in the state’s biggest county where children were found to have elevated levels of lead in their blood, the Ohio Supreme Court said Thursday in rejecting the request.

By linking the demand to specific blood-lead levels, Lipson O’Shea Legal Group made it impossible for the Cuyahoga County Board of Health to comply without identifying specific individuals, the court ruled in a unanimous decision.

“It is undeniable that the address of a home where a child has an elevated blood lead level can be used to identify the afflicted child,” wrote Justice Paul Pfeifer.

The high court sent the case back to a judge to see if any of the board’s 5,000 pages of records could be released to the firm. Pfeifer also said the information might be available if a different set of documents was requested.

At issue was Lipson O’Shea’s 2012 public records filing for documentation of all homes in Cuyahoga County “where a minor child was found to have elevated blood lead levels,” according to the court ruling. The request included a specific blood-lead level amount.

Both a judge and an appeals court said state law prohibits releasing such records if the information could be used to reveal an individual’s identity.

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