For an official agenda, go here.

STATE RECORDS COMMITTEE MEETING


The State Records Committee will hold a meeting at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, April 9, in the Courtyard Meeting Room, State Archives Building, 346 S. Rio Grande St. (450 West), Salt Lake City. This is a public meeting, and anyone can attend. Committee business and two hearings are scheduled.

*Introduction of Gary Ott, Elected Official Representative, newly appointed member of the Committee

*First Hearing – Tina Wollenberg vs. Summit County. Ms. Wollenberg is appealing the denial of recorded interviews of her minor children by the Summit County Sheriff’s Office.

*Second Hearing – Marvin Melville vs. Salt Lake City Corporation. Mr. Melville is appealing the denial of a draft of an affidavit.

*Approval of the March 12, 2009, meeting minutes of the State Records Committee
*Approval of General Schedule items
*Appeals received
*Cases in District Court
*Draft of proposal dealing with repeated postponements and rescheduling of hearings – Paul Tonks
*Other Business
*Adjournment – Next meeting scheduled – Thursday, May 14, 2009

Labels: State Records Committee

Just about all government contracts are public records, and last week the Utah Attorney General's Office gave us copies of the contracts with the American Detoxification Foundation.

The contracts are attached below. The 2008 contract includes a description of the treatment designed by L. Ron Hubbard.

A PDF of the University of Utah's police and firefighter health study is here.

This 2003 New York Times article discusses how firefighters completed the detoxification treatments after the Sept. 11 attacks. The article mentions a report completed years earlier by a Ronald E. Gots that was harsh in its assessment of the treatment.

Gots called me Friday to say the science and his opinions remain the same.

— NC

AG%20Detoxification%20Contract%202-17-07%20for%20120%20days.pdf

AG%20Detoxification%20Contract%204-30-08%20%20to%209-30-08.pdf

Labels: Crime, open government

Just about all government contracts are public records, and last week the Utah Attorney General's Office gave us copies of the contracts with the American Detoxification Foundation.

The contracts are attached below. The 2008 contract includes a description of the treatment designed by L. Ron Hubbard.

A PDF of the University of Utah's police and firefighter health study is here.

This 2003 New York Times article discusses how firefighters completed the detoxification treatments after the Sept. 11 attacks. The article mentions a report completed years earlier by a Ronald E. Gots that was harsh in its assessment of the treatment.

Gots called me Friday to say the science and his opinions remain the same.

— NC

AG%20Detoxification%20Contract%202-17-07%20for%20120%20days.pdf

AG%20Detoxification%20Contract%204-30-08%20%20to%209-30-08.pdf

Labels: Crime, open government

If you just watched basketball all weekend, you may have missed this great public-... make that would-be-public-records story about birds colliding with airplanes.

Birds brought down the passenger jet which crashed into the Hudson River earlier this year. According to the Associated Press article, the Federal Aviation Administration after the crash said it would make its database of bird strikes available to the public. Then the FAA reversed itself.

From the article:

The government agency argued that some carriers and airports would stop reporting incidents for fear the public would misinterpret the data and hold it against them. The reporting is voluntary because the FAA rejected a National Transportation Safety Board recommendation 10 years ago to make it mandatory.

You might be asking: Why do reporters need this database? We know there's a problem with birds at airports.

Yes, but do some airports have bigger bird problems than others? And are airports — and airlines — responding to the problems appropriately?

— NC

Labels: FOIA, secrecy

President Bill Clinton perfected the trick that politicians ever since have been practicing -- the Friday night document dump.

Enter Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.

After a leisurely pace of bill signing so far (just 18), Huntsman put his Jon Hancock into overdrive and signed 103 bills Friday -- nearly a quarter of the 450 or so bills passed during the session.

Then, in true Clintonian fashion, he sent out a press release after 5 p.m. Friday and quickly disappeared -- unavailable for comment should anyone want to know why he signed this or that bill, particularly a handful of controversial ones.

Nosey reporters had to settle for spokeswoman Lisa Roskelley. And, frankly, she didn't know the ins and outs of some of the bills or the governor's reasoning.

Here's a bet: When the Guv signs the landmark liquor law reform that he pushed so hard to get through the Legislature, it won't be with 102 other bills and announced in a Friday evening document dump after he's left the building.

-- Dan Harrie

The gentleman above probably is not how most of us define "gang member," yet when I searched for Utah gang images on Google, this is one of the photographs which appeared.

Some of the defense attorneys I spoke with last week would use this as a point. How do we know who is being called a gang member?

Reporter Melinda Rogers and I asked that in an article about gang databases and a forthcoming statewide database. The federal government regulates who police input into such a database and how those names can remain.

If you want to know whether you're in the database, the easiest thing to do is call your local police jurisdiction and ask. If you don't receive an answer, you can file a request under the Utah Government Records Access and Management Act. But that may not yield your answer, either.

The act grants you some records when you are the subject. But the law also permits law enforcement to withhold records deemed part of ongoing investigations.

— NC

Labels: GRAMA, Police, technology

On March 23, the League of Women Voters Salt Lake Chapter will host a discussion about what the Obama Administration is -- and should be -- doing to promote open government.

The event will include a Webcast of the fourth-annual Sunshine Week National Dialogue at the Center for American Progress. That dialogue will feature individuals involved in crafting the Obama Administration's open government directive and will explain the initiative's goals, receive feedback from the audience, and let members of the public know how they can continue to participate in the discussion.

Following the webcast, a panel will discuss the implications for Utah.

The free event will be held at 6 p.m. at the Salt Lake City Library and will include the presentation of the Society of Professional Journalists' annual Sunshine and Black Hole Awards.

-- mdl

Labels: Obama, open government