If you're a regular reader of this blog — And judging by the Web traffic, you're not. — you may remember this post from June.

The subject of that wayward Freedom of Information Act request was Bruce "Utah" Phillips. The FBI originally told me it did not have any files on Phillips at its Salt Lake City field office.

Then a couple weeks ago, a package from FBI record keepers in Virginia arrives on my desk. A file discussing Phillips was inside.

I called the FBI's FOIA hotline to ask why I received the earlier letter telling me nothing existed. A helpful gentleman at the hotline told me he did not know why the earlier letter was sent, but — hypothetically — the FBI may not have had a file on Phillips himself but did find references to Phillips in a different file.

That makes me want to request the entire file, a piece of which is found below.

— NC


PhillipsFBI.pdf

Labels: FBI, FOIA

Election-related documents usually include voter registration cards, voter rolls and records of campaign contributions.

I never thought a police report would be related to an election. But that's life in American politics.

The report below is from the Uintah County Sheriff's Office. It discusses one episode in the investigation into the 2006 Daggett County Sheriff's Election.

— NC

UintahSheriffreport.pdf

Labels: Candidates, Police

I must have big fans on the north end of the Wasatch Front because the Standard-Examiner has weighed upon the survey I discussed yesterday.

In an editorial, the Ogden-based newspaper opines:

In Utah, our government is ailing, and it needs a large dose of integrity....

The editorial recommends following BGA's suggestions for improving government.

— NC

Labels: Open and Public Meetings Act, open records

The Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office logs millions of dollars in overtime each year to operate its 2,000-bed Adult Detention Center -- an expense that has tripled during the past five years.

Democratic Sheriff Jim Winder defends those hours as necessary for keeping the county jail secure while staffing levels are down. And the County Council seems to agree.

But that’s a policy decision. The issue, in this context, is how to demonstrate through public records that a rise in overtime hours really has occurred.

Here’s how we did it: We pulled numbers from the county’s end-of-year budget reports that include detailed data on the number of allocated positions within the jail, the number of vacancies (as of December) and the amount of money spent in overtime.

The one-stop shop for those numbers would be the Auditor’s Office, even though we directed our inquiry to the county’s human-resources division and the Mayor’s Office.

What we found is that the jail’s overtime hours ballooned from $1.1 million in 2003 to $3.2 million last year. Meanwhile, the number of jail vacancies rose from 22 positions to 71. Only recently did those numbers diverge: the number of empty jail jobs declined in 2008, but OT hours are expected to remain steady at $3.1 million.

Interesting? We thought so.

The sheriff told the County Council this week that his overtime expenses really are reasonable. As proof, he demonstrated through a slide show that the jail’s salaries have increased about 5 percent annually -- about the same as corrections’ overall expenditures.

By the way, that slide show is a public document, too. We got it.

-- JS

The alternative title of this post is: "Utah: It's just like New York."



The Better Government Association recently released a ranking of how states score in protecting "itself against possible corruption and [making] its processes open and accountable to it citizens." The BGA ranking index considers the state's laws on transparency, keeping public officials accountable and placing limits on items like campaign contributions and gifts to public officials.

To read the entire report, click here then choose your preferred format.

Utah was ranked 36 overall, which tied it with New York. Utah was tied for third in open records laws, but the state's standing deteriorates from there.

The Beehive State was ranked 9th in protecting whistle blowers. Utah is 39th in campaign finance laws. (Insert your "Utah politics needs ethics reform" mantra here.)

Utah is No. 32 in open meetings laws and No. 47 in conflicts of interest laws.

— NC

Labels: Open and Public Meetings Act, open records, State Records Committee

Curious about the kooky calls phoned into the Salt Lake County Mayor’s Office? We certainly were.

The state’s most-populous county maintains a publicly accessible database that logs thousands of constituent complaints and calls for service dialed into the Mayor’s Office.

Although the reports read much like a police blotter -- snowplow tears up parking strip, traffic signal not working, ducklings trapped beneath a storm drain -- they provide enough detail to dig up sometimes-laughable case files about the phone calls that frequent the county’s highest office.

You’ll read about pink fire hydrants, mattresses flopping in the road at midnight and a woman who wants the county to trim her apple trees.

The information is accessible under the Government Records Access and Management Act to anyone who wants it. And it won’t take long to compile. We requested a 10-month report listing thousands of phone calls. It took less than two minutes for the Mayor’ Office to generate the spreadsheet and ship it to us via e-mail.

-- JS

Every weekday morning, Cedar City police send an e-mail informing reporters of people they arrested the previous day. The list has the suspect's name and the offense of which he or she is accused, a date of birth and address, and another item: a social security number.

Don't be surprised. While identity thieves have forced most of us to regard a social security number as top secret, government agencies in Utah still publish them on all sorts of documents. Search my files at The Tribune offices and you'll find dozens' of people's social security numbers printed on arrest reports, court files, jail logs and property records.

A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office discusses the scope of the issue. Local governments have collected these numbers for decades for identification purposes. Governments are suppose to make their records available to the public. The report opines:

In weighing how best to address some of these open issues over the availability of SSNs in public records, Congress will need to balance the need to keep SSNs confidential with the long standing tradition of open access to public records, the rights of states and localities to regulate the availability of records they maintain, and the use of SSNs in the private sector.

Utah law forbids releasing social security numbers as part of voter registration records and a few other specific circumstances, but there is no blanket prohibition. The GAO report suggests disclosing the numbers might already be illegal under a federal law, but says no one has tried enforcing that law. Meanwhile, scrubbing social security numbers from the Cedar City arrest log and scores of other public documents could be a massive undertaking for local governments.

To download the GAO report, click here.

Labels: open records

President Bush may be a lame duck, but that doesn't mean public access watchdogs are going to let him fly away without a fight.

A federal judge on Monday said Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive could go ahead with their suit against the Bush administration in a case involving millions of missing e-mails.

The two groups claim that the White House didn't adequately preserve e-mails during the period of 2003 to 2005.

In his defense Bush said: "Oh, shucks guys, there wasn't anything interestin' goin' on during those years anyway!"

OK, actually the president hasn't even come up with that lame of an excuse. In fact, he hasn't come up with any excuse at all for the missing public records. Instead, his cronies contend that the courts don't have authority to review their compliance with public records law.

Checks and balances? We don't need no stinkin' checks and balances!

— ML

Labels: FOIA, open records, White House

A few recent items about President-elect Obama and open government: 

ProPublica had a piece last week discussing Obama's history with transparency. (Why weren't there more articles about this during the campaign?)

On Friday, ProPublica followed up by reporting on Obama's plan to use technology to increase government transparency.

Some folks have their own plan for Obama. The Sunshine in Government Initiative has recommendations for the incoming administration. Click here for a PDF of the organization's four-page letter to Obama. Click here for a PDF of the the Sunshine in Government' white paper.

By the way, the polls are still open on my first FOIA under the Obama administration.

— NC

*Photo courtesy of The Associated Press. Draw your own conclusions about why Bush is in the shadows and Obama in the light.

Labels: open records, White House

For the complete notice and agenda, click here.

The State Records Committee will hold a meeting on Thursday, Nov. 13, 2008. The meeting will be held at 9:30 a.m. in the Courtyard Meeting Room, the Archives Building, 346 South Rio Grande St. (450 West), Salt Lake City. This is a public meeting, and anyone can attend. Committee business and one hearing are scheduled.

Hearing – Keith Sobraske, Investigative Research, Inc. vs. Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT). Mr. Sobraske is appealing the denial of records including traffic, engineering, accident, and other studies and changes on a section of U.S. Highway 163.

— Approval of the Oct. 9 meeting minutes of the State Records Committee
— Appeals received: A summary of cases reviewed for hearings
— Cases in District Court
— Citizen representative update
— Scheduling training for Committee members
— Approval of General Schedule Items
— Other Business
— Adjournment – Next meeting scheduled – Thursday, Dec. 11

Individuals wishing to comment during the meeting should notify Susan Mumford, Executive Secretary of the State Records Committee, and should be in attendance at the public meeting.

Labels: State Records Committee

Perhaps the most persistent campaign controversy in Salt Lake County Council politics this season had to do with incumbents' attendance -- an issue best characterized by a "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" radio parody produced by Democrat Paul Pugmire in west-side District 2 to ding his opponent, Republican Councilman Michael Jensen, for missing "one-third" of formal council meetings.

But "poor attendance" claims surfaced elsewhere, as well, including in east-side District 4, where Democrat Jani Iwamoto used them against GOP incumbent Mark Crockett.

Unfortunately, fact-checking those numbers proved surprisingly difficult (despite having the council's meeting minutes posted online). The county keeps no attendance tally that the public can request through open-records laws.

Instead, The Tribune had to compile its own database by pulling up records from every council meeting online -- available at www.slco.org by clicking on the County Council link -- and keeping track of who was absent. The task took about two hours, but yielded a spreadsheet that compared the attendance of all nine council members.

Turns out, Jensen had missed about 29 percent of formal council meetings and only 15 percent of council work sessions.

The allegation against Crockett (that he had missed 35.48 percent of council meetings this year) also was overstated. The actual number was closer to 30 percent. And during his entire four-year term, he had missed 22 percent of formal council meetings and 8 percent of work sessions.

Jensen won his re-election; Crockett lost.

--JS

Now that Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon has nabbed a second four-year term, here’s a look at the public records that came in handy while investigating his record and the allegations lodged by his Republican rival, Michael Renckert.

Claim: Corroon staffs his office and the county’s highest administrative posts with fellow partisans.

Useful records: The Salt Lake County Clerk’s Office maintains records of all registered voters and their respective party affiliations. By snatching an organizational chart off the county’s Web site, The Tribune submitted a records request to the clerk asking for the partisanship of the mayor’s top employees. Turns out, the Democratic mayor had hired only two registered Republicans, compared with 14 fellow partisans. Ten others remained unaffiliated on the rolls.

Trouble spot: The Clerk’s Office needed home addresses to identify the party labels of county employees with common names. The Tribune ended up contacting those staffers directly.


Claim: Corroon had refused to allow Kennecott to conduct mineral exploration on the publicly owned Rose Canyon Ranch on the southern edge of Salt Lake County.

Useful records: All communication received or transmitted by the county is fair game under the state’s open-records laws, unless specifically designated as protected or private. This issue was best resolved by requesting all letters and e-mails received by the Mayor’s Office about the Rose Canyon Ranch property, plus all communication from the county’s open-space department that is trying to protect it. Those records revealed a tense relationship between the county and Kennecott, not to mention a threat of trespassing if company prospectors tried to access the property.

Trouble spot: None.


Claim: Corroon has relied too heavily on consultants.

Useful records: The county’s contracts and procurement division maintains records on all outside contractors. The Tribune examined eight years of that data and found that overall contractors (including engineers, architects and consultants) has grown considerably. Has the mayor relied to heavily on those individuals?

Well, that’s a political decision.

Trouble spot: None.

JS

Don't peel off those "I Voted" stickers yet. There's one more campaign to decide.

What's going to be my first Freedom of Information Request to President Obama?

That's right. I'm not going to waste time. Come Jan. 20, as soon as Obama lowers his right hand and takes his left one off the Bible, I'm putting an FOIA request into the mailbox or fax machine and sending it to a federal agency in the Executive Branch.

Congratulations on reaching the White House, President-elect Obama. My colleagues and I will be bothering you a lot to find out what's going on in there.

The question is what to request? Here are some ideas I'm kicking around and some suggestions from others. But I would like your ideas and input. Type them here or e-mail me at ncarlisle@sltrib.com.

— NC

— A detailed accounting of expenses incurred during the presidential transition. How much does it cost to change the letterhead, anyway?

— Rick Blum, coordinator of the Sunshine In Government Initiative, suggested requesting the "names of organizations and individuals participating in meetings to craft the new administration's energy task force." This is something Dick Cheney refused to disclose when he convened an energy policy. Blum says the new administration may form a similar body. Wouldn't you like to know if there's a representative from the oil shale or waste disposal industry, Utah?

— Travel expenses and reimbursements for former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt. This is a Utah angle that the Obama administration might even rush for us given the then-former secretary suddenly finds himself in the "other party." Leavitt's had a little trouble with travel.

— Ellen Smith, the managing editor of Mine Safety and Health News, recommended requesting a 2003 Department of Labor report on the Martin County Coal impoundment failure. Smith says the Bush Administration prematurely stopped the investigation into a disaster that was larger than the Exxon Valdez oil spill. This topic might not be so far removed from Utah's own concerns about mining and industrial waste safety.

— The FBI file for late Utah Gov. Calvin Rampton. I've been meaning to send this anyway. Dead people can make for interesting reading.



Photo by The Associated Press.

Labels: Candidates, FOIA

UPDATE: On Wednesday, a county official sent me an e-mail with this explanation for the emergency meeting.

Nate; Sorry with the election, I was just now able to look at my email messages. Yes, something unexpected did come up with a deadline of November 5, 2008 to have two resolutions approved and submitted. Thank you.

Onto the original post. — NC


The Daggett County Commission held what it labeled an "emergency meeting" at 9 a.m. today. Was it because a tornado struck? Flaming Gorge Dam burst? The Wyoming National Guard invaded?

No. The best I can infer, an "emergency meeting" was held because somebody realized there is an election on Tuesday. (What is it with Daggett County and elections?)

Daggett County's Web site today listed two notices. One announced the emergency meeting. The other canceled a meeting scheduled for Tuesday "due to Election Day being held at the Courthouse" in Manila.

State law requires government bodies to post notices and agendas at least 24 hours before meeting. I don't know what time the notice for the emergency meeting was posted. The law says the 24-hour rule can be waived if ...

... because of unforeseen circumstances it is necessary for a public body to hold an emergency meeting to consider matters of an emergency or urgent nature ...

Click here for a PDF of the "emergency meeting" agenda. Here's a synopsis: Say Pledge of Allegiance, Approve Open Invoice Report, hear information item, consider two fiscal resolutions, consider the application for one person to the planning and zoning board.

— NC

Labels: Open and Public Meetings Act