Not So Supreme
One attorney wonders whether the State Records Committee is paying attention to the recent decision discussed below.
This spring, the Deseret News won a records case that went all the way to the Utah Supreme Court. The court ordered Salt Lake County to release a report on a sexual harassment investigation. Then on May 8, a former Utah Department of Corrections employee, represented by attorney Chad Steur, took a similar case to the State Records Committee.
Steur's client wanted sexual harassment investigation reports on two other corrections workers, one of whom was found by the department to have harassed. Steur used the News ruling to argue releasing the reports on both workers.
The records committee sided with Steur on the report for the worker found to have harassed and ordered the report released. But the committee allowed corrections to keep secret the report for the guy who was absolved of harassment. The committee said releasing that report would "constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy." Here is a link to the complete order.
The split decision eats at Steur. He says the News ruling should have applied to both reports and says the records committee made an arbitrary decision.
"It remains to be seen whether the records committee is going to follow the mandate from the Utah Supreme Court that all records are public," Steur told me in an interview.
Steur said his client wanted to judge for herself whether both harassment cases were handled properly but cannot without the reports.
-- nc
This spring, the Deseret News won a records case that went all the way to the Utah Supreme Court. The court ordered Salt Lake County to release a report on a sexual harassment investigation. Then on May 8, a former Utah Department of Corrections employee, represented by attorney Chad Steur, took a similar case to the State Records Committee.
Steur's client wanted sexual harassment investigation reports on two other corrections workers, one of whom was found by the department to have harassed. Steur used the News ruling to argue releasing the reports on both workers.
The records committee sided with Steur on the report for the worker found to have harassed and ordered the report released. But the committee allowed corrections to keep secret the report for the guy who was absolved of harassment. The committee said releasing that report would "constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy." Here is a link to the complete order.
The split decision eats at Steur. He says the News ruling should have applied to both reports and says the records committee made an arbitrary decision.
"It remains to be seen whether the records committee is going to follow the mandate from the Utah Supreme Court that all records are public," Steur told me in an interview.
Steur said his client wanted to judge for herself whether both harassment cases were handled properly but cannot without the reports.
-- nc
Labels: GRAMA, State Records Committee
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home