Wisconsin Sunbeam

For once there is an open records issue that I am somewhat ambivalent toward. Generally, it is very easy for me to say ‘if it was created in the public realm, then the public deserves access to it’, but I find myself sitting on the fence with this story.

According to the Post-Cresent, “A former Kimberly High School basketball coach is continuing a nearly two-month battle for access to documents that may have contributed to his dismissal.” At first blush, I say ‘absolutely, give him the records!’. If there was back room dealing that lost him his job he deserves to know it. But, upon reading further, I see that he has indeed received the documents that he requested. It is the fact that names were redacted from the letters he received that has led to the public records battle. Hm, are those names really germane to what the individuals (not public officials mind, but parents in the school district) had to say about him? The question of whether or not private citizen’s communications with public officials are a matter of public record is a hard puzzle to solve, and in fact, has not yet been solved to anyone’s satisfaction to date.

John Miron has a point though when he says that “Those submitting these letters are not a protected class and have no ‘confidentiality’ rights. The identity of the authors is relevant information that I am entitled to.” And based on that, I am forced to agree with him. As matters stand, people in communication with public bodies know (or should know) that public bodies are subject to FOIA, and they ought to proceed under the assumption that one day their communications could be made public.

So, I’m back to ‘absolutely, give him the records!’ and don’t redact them. The possibility that he might just be seeking the names of those in the community that don’t like him is not relevant to the greater issue of the publics’ right to public records.

One of the blogs I read everyday, State Sunshine & Open Records, found what might be the coolest use of FOIA yet. A British band performed a song in front of surveillance cameras, then sent (the British equivalent of) FOIA requests for the footage, and assembled a music video from it! Neat.

Here’s the video:

The music’s not bad either — way to go to The Get Out Clause!

… but Badger Blogger has got the goods! I just knew there would be some interesting e-mail about how the Brittany Zimmermann 911 call went down.

HT Forward Our Motto.

Nothing yet. Unfortunately, the Wisconsin Open Records statute does not identify a time in which a public entity must respond to records requests by, stating only “as soon as practicable and without delay”. Not surprisingly, the 911 Center has not seen it to be “as soon as practicable” to respond to my request for their internal communications about the incident yet.

It’s not like I want heads to roll over something that it’s too late to fix, but I’m really, really interested to hear what sort of repercussions there are for the 911 dispatcher who failed to dispatch anyone, and what is on the table to make sure this sort of thing never happens again. I’ll keep updating here as things develop.

Meanwhile, County Executive Kathleen Falk has acknowledged that “the system didn’t work like it should” for Brittany Zimmermann. Um, no kidding.

H/T Fraley.

When I was looking for some good blog posts about open records around the country today, I noticed what might be turning out to be a new trend: the Friday FOIA’s. I guess I jumped the gun by filing a FOIA request yesterday…

First, from A Chicago Blog we have Friday FOIA: Jim Thompson’s Expense Report, where Michael Van Winkle writes about a request he’s made to figure out if Jim Thompson has any of his expenses reimbursed by the Illinois Sports Facility Authority.

Then there is FOIA Friday - May 2, 2008 brought by Maggie Thurber of Thurber’s Thoughts. Here, she gives us a couple of updates on FOIA projects that have been going on in her area.

That’s all I found (so far) on Friday FOIA blogging, but I think it’s a great idea and hope to see more entries in the coming weeks.

UPDATE: Today (5/6/08 ) I found another Friday FOIAer! Entropic Memes offers up Friday FOIA Fun: Intelligence, a more federally focused posting.

For other good blog posts on open records recently we have Freedom of Information – Let’s Start Looking beyond the Law from People, Places, Deliberation. I really enjoyed this post since it calls transparent government laws one of the defining features of a civilized society.

And here’s one where I just really get a kick out of the title: Open Government can be so pesky from Young Philly Politics. Yeah, I get the feeling that that’s how all too many public officials view it.

It seems that the Madison 911 Center screwed up after receiving a call from a recent murder victim. The 911 Center has been refusing to respond to requests for more information:

Over the past two and a half weeks, the 911 Center has refused requests for basic information about the calls. This week, Joe Norwick, director of the Dane County 911 Center since July, declined further opportunities to comment after being provided with a written summary of parts of this story.

In an email, Norwick said he was basing his refusal on a request from the Madison Police Department to withhold all information “pertaining to this matter” because release would “seriously impair” the murder investigation.

Madison police officials vigorously dispute this. While declining to call the 911 Center’s action a cover-up, they suggested that Norwick is improperly using the department as an excuse not to own up to his agency’s mistakes.

Despite all that (or maybe because of all that) it sounds to me like this calls for a FOIA.

H/T to Badger Blogger.

UPDATE: I just hit sent on this request. It made more sense to me to request internal communications about Brittany Zimmermann’s call than to ask for the call itself, as the Isthmus article above shows that they have already hit a wall using that angle. Let’s see if I get anything useful back!

I was very pleased to sit down at the computer this morning and read about Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen’s recent opinion on open records from the DMV. I wrote about this a long time ago, and I’m awfully glad to see this matter receiving the attention that it deserves.

See

Attorney general: Police can release DMV information

and

Motor records can be disclosed.

UPDATE: FOI FYI, the Freedom of Information Committee’s blog, has picked up this story.

The most recent article in the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council’s (WISFOIC) Right to Know Series (which I love — archives here) brings up the interesting point that modern day communications have left Wisconsin’s open record statutes in the dust. As I’ve talked about before, text messaging is already a contentious point between some Madison policy makers, and those are only the tip of the iceberg. As Roger Allen puts it:

[W]hat obligations does a records custodian have to preserve metadata, computer systems logs (used by information technology folks on daily basis to assess systems functions), voicemail, instant messaging, text messaging, or chat room discussions?

Beyond those, what about internet search histories (that bane of sexual misfits everywhere), lists of websites visited by public employees while on the job and the time spent on those websites, or any other form of interacting with the wider world that we may not even have thought of yet?

I’m pretty positive that there are records in each one of these categories that the public would be interested to see — and deserves to know about. Luckily for us, the City of Madison has been working to review and update it’s openness ordinance for the past three (!) years. That work has culminated in a newly proposed ordinance called Legislative File No. 09158. Take a look and tell me what you think of the proposal.

Josh over at Blog Waukesha is starting a great new project: “Project Identify Waste” on his blog. I’m pretty pleased that he chose open records as the first tool he’ll be using to identify waste. If all goes as it should, I think access to Waukesha’s public records will be the only tool necessary to source out excessive city spending. My suspicion, however, is that while public records will hold all of the information that he is seeking, actually gaining access to them may require such additional tools as lawsuits or the outing of city staff that are stingy with providing proper access.

Good luck Josh!

Taking that first step toward making an honest woman of myself.

Kicking some ass in Rat City.

Finding a house to buy.

Visiting someone dear to me in a place I wish they weren’t.

So, stuff has been happening to me, but things have been happening on the Wisconsin open records front too. I’ll get back to making fun of the legislature’s stance on transparency tomorrow!