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

Thank God it's Monday. You don't hear that often, but after everything that happened to me last week on the records front, I want a fresh start.

I confess I don't like House Bill 122, though I'm trying to remember the arguments in favor of it. The bill passed the House last week, but it's still just a problem for another day.

Last week, I received word from the Ogden Records Board that it denied my appeal for certain employment records related to former police officer Ken Hammond. Ogden does not subscribe to the State Records Committee appeal system, so The Tribune has to file suit against the city if it wants to pursue this further. My bosses have not given me an indication the newspaper will do that.

The board's denial, a copy of which is attached below, probably ensures the pending criminal and civil court cases against Hammond will be the only vehicles for learning details of his time on the police force.

To ensure I would be beaten down by three levels of government, the feds sought to crush my spirits, too. The Mine Safety and Health Administration sent me a copy of a 2001 report about the Martin County Coal impoundment failure, which was one of my first FOIA requests to Obama Administration. The problem is: I asked for the 2003 report — which the government (now under two presidents) has been withholding from release.

And I'm not the only who had problems last week. Check out this article about meetings in Highland. In my experience, when one member of a governing body complains about transparency issues with the rest of the board, there's some kind of problem.

— NC

OgdenRecordsReviewBoardDecision.pdf

Labels: Crime, FOIA, GRAMA, Legislature, Obama, Open and Public Meetings Act

The legislation which would limit access to some public records has passed the Utah House and that's intensifying opponents.

Joel Campbell, an assistant professor of communications at BYU, sent an e-mail to journalists on Thursday asking for them to get loud and organized. Maybe Campbell was inspired by some fishermen.

The Spectrum in St. George published an editorial Thursday opposing the bill. Other Utah newspapers have published similar editorials.

The attorney general's office, which is backing the bill, says House Bill 122 will preserve attorney work product and protect criminal investigations.

An excerpt of Campbell's e-mail and his talking points are below.

— NC

Dear Friends of Open Government

You can make a difference by making a call or writing something today. Its (sic) time to alert everyone we know, citizens, journalists and officials about HB122, sponsored by Rep. Doug Aagard, R-Kaysville.

HB122 passed the House yesterday. We need to contact Senators. I have attached new talking points that address the bill as amended in the House. Please editorialize on it, blog about it, facebook it, twitter it and distribute widely and, most importantly, call, fax or write your senator! We should also call and write Mark Shurtleff, whose office is pushing this bill and ask the Governor to veto this bill if it comes to his desk. We are going to lose this one if we don't start communicating our concerns to senators.

H.B.122.Talking.Points.02.18.09.pdf

Labels: Crime, GRAMA, Legislature

The Salt Lake City Police Department has written a four-page policy on how the new Pioneer Park cameras are to be used.

A PDF of that policy can be found here.

The policy does not address what happens when someone outside the police department wants a copy of the video.

When I asked police Chief Chris Burbank about this Wednesday, he described the recordings as "private" information, similar to that of calls to a police dispatcher.

But I have received copies of Salt Lake City dispatch recordings before via a GRAMA request.

Martha Stonebrook, a senior attorney for the city, gave a more-measured response when I called her Wednesday. She said requests would be reviewed on a "case-by-case basis." That's in tune with GRAMA.

The law says records are public unless they are expressly exempt from disclosure. The catch is there are lots of statutes that can be interpreted — correctly as not — as closing a record. Hypothetically, the city could deny record requests for video footage and argue the footage invades someone's personal privacy.*

But that would seem to play into the hands of the ACLU, which has made a similar argument against having cameras at all.

The city may be on firmer ground if someone requested footage of a suspected crime. GRAMA makes exemptions for evidence in a criminal case.

— NC


* I am not an attorney and frequently remind myself of that.

Labels: Crime, GRAMA, Police, SLC

An open letter to former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson:

Dear Mr. Anderson:

Thank you for your recent letter concerning The Tribune's coverage of Wally Bugden. It's always nice to hear from readers. Hell, at this point, it's nice to have readers.

While I have no capacity to speak for The Tribune as a whole, I say you're free to criticize the newspaper. The Tribune shines a critical light on many and is not above accepting the same.

But can you shoot a little bit of your criticism toward the city of Ivins?

Ever since Mr. Bugden was arrested, The Tribune's crime desk has been asking Ivins police to give us a statement, a police report, a poem, a crop circle pattern, an interpretive dance or something else indicating what happened.



Thus far the answers have all been no. The police department has denied our GRAMA request.

That means we don't know the facts of Mr. Bugden's arrest — only that he was booked into the Washington County jail on suspicion of public intoxication.

That could mean he was harmless in the lotus position, as you claim.* Or he was running drunk up Snow Canyon Parkway, shouting the rules of evidence and asking Relief Society members to tug on his bow tie.

I'm making up that latter version of events. But I can't verify your information, either, and everyone is left to wonder what really happened.

Let me know if you hear anything from Ivins. Thanks again for writing. And, for heaven's sake, please keep reading.

Sincerely,

Nate Carlisle
Salt Lake Tribune


*If true, then a guy with access to a free legal defense decides to get drunk and ornery and the the best he can think of is the lotus position? Public intoxication is wasted on the middle-aged and well educated.

— NC

Labels: Crime, GRAMA

After months of confusion, The Spanish Fork News will receive the two police initial contact reports it sought.

The State Records Committee ruled unanimously in favor of reporter Hilarie Orman and directed the Utah County Sheriff's Office to provide the reports it has been denying her for months.

Confusion replaced drama at today's hearing. A representative from the Utah County Attorney's Office actually agreed with Orman that the documents she sought were public. The attorney said her office did not understand what Orman was seeking. The office, and apparently the county commission, too, thought Orman wanted other related documents and not an initial contact report.

Initial contact reports are public under state law. I listened to this morning's hearing and the back and forth discussions over how the two sides got confused, but I still don't understand what the problem was.

Maybe Orman could have been more clear. Also, maybe Utah County could have been more open with its documentation in order to let Orman take what she wanted.

It's also still apparent to me Utah County was placing the burden on Orman to show why the record should be released. That is not how the law works. The burden is on government to show why the record should not be disclosed.

— NC

Labels: Crime, State Records Committee, Utah County

UPDATE: A Standard-Examiner editorial on Wednesday voiced strong opposition to HB122. The newspaper also published this editorial cartoon.


The debate over public records legislation sounds a lot like an argument about whether government is always right.

HB122 — filed at the request of the Attorney General's Office — would remove avenues of appeal for records associated with law-enforcement proceedings, government audits and personnel matters.

In other words, if the bill passes, and you want a police report or a copy of a government audit, and the government denies your request, you may be out of luck.

There's no more administrative appeals — which is currently a cornerstone of Utah's records laws, called GRAMA. Or, from another perspective, there's no more "second guessing."

From the Standard-Examiner:

Patrick Nolan, of the state Attorney General's Office, said during a legislative committee meeting Monday morning that the court system and state boards are "second-guessing" law enforcement's classification of restricted documents.

Nolan may have been talking about the Utah Supreme Court. In a 2008 ruling on a GRAMA lawsuit, the supremes effectively said just because a government agency classifies a record as exempt from disclosure, doesn't mean the government is correct.

I cited this ruling today when I appeared before Ogden's records board. Ogden has classified some personnel records as exempt from disclosure. I argued the city is wrong and the documents should be disclosed.

If HB122 passes, I may not get to make this argument again. The government will be right — whether it is or not.

— NC

Labels: Crime, GRAMA, Legislature

A Salt Lake City-based immigration task force approaches the home of suspected criminal immigrant last year. Below, an arrested suspect is taken to a detention center.

A Freedom of Information Act lawsuit has shed light on how immigration enforcers have been doing their job.

Documents suggest rather than finding the worst lawbreaking immigrants, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement just took the immigrants they could find. You can read the report from the Migration Policy Institute here.




The report discusses fugitive apprehension programs, such as those operated in Salt Lake City. The report relies heavily on documents obtained through suing ICE and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under FOIA.

The report's conclusion says:

NFOP was established to further important goals: locating, apprehending, and removing fugitive aliens who endanger the nation or their communities. Congress has exponentially increased NFOP’s budget to enable ICE to achieve this mission.

Yet ICE’s own data indicate NFOP has failed to focus on the priorities it claimed in justifying its program to Congress. Since shifting the objective in January 2006 to 1,000 arrests per fugitive operations team, and crediting arrests of some nonfugitives towards this total, the program has apprehended the easiest targets, not the most dangerous ones.

— NC

Labels: Crime, FOIA

For the full meeting notice, go here.

STATE RECORDS COMMITTEE MEETING
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING

The State Records Committee will hold a meeting on 9:30 a.m. Thursday, February 12 in the Courtyard Meeting Room, State Archives Building, 346 South Rio Grande Street (450 West), Salt Lake City. This is a public meeting. Committee business and three hearings are scheduled.

*First Hearing – Tina Wollenberger vs. Summit County. Ms. Wollenberger is appealing the denial of copies of a video taped interview of her minor son by the Summit County Sheriff’s Office.

*Second Hearing – Hilarie Orman, Spanish Fork News vs. Utah County. Ms. Orman is appealing the denial of incident reports from the Utah County Sheriff’s Office.


*Approval of the January 8, 2009, meeting minutes of the State Records Committee

*Introduction of Scott Daniels, Citizen Representative

*Approval of Retention Schedule Items

*Discussion of Administrative Rules changes

*Annual Report for 2008

*Other Business

*Adjournment – Next meeting scheduled – Thursday, March 12, 2009

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. The executive secretary will also accept written comments before the meeting but no later than February 9, 2009, at 6:00 p.m. Please mail or deliver those comments to:

State Records Committee
Utah State Archives
346 S. Rio Grande
Salt Lake City, Utah 84101

Labels: Crime, State Records Committee, Utah County

In another reminder of how public access laws are considered important to international human rights, the prime minister of Grenada says he will introduce freedom of information laws to that country.

Meanwhile, the fight for public access continues here in the homeland. The Utah County Commission has denied an appeal filed by Hilarie Orman of the Spanish Fork News.



Orman is seeking two benign police reports from the Utah County Sheriff's Office. But the sheriff's office, and now the county commission, says the reports are protected records.

Orman is considering an appeal to the State Records Committee.

Labels: Crime, Utah County

A subpoena from the Davis County Attorney's office, made public today by KSL, is demanding the station turn over "edited and unedited versions of interviews with Mark Walker, Richard Ellis and Greg Curtis."

Davis County and Weber County prosecutors are handling an investigation into an allegation that Walker, a former state legislator, promised Ellis a job and a big pay increase if he would drop out of the state treasurer's race.

The interviews were conducted on June 23 on the Doug Wright radio program and on July 10 by TV reporter Richard Piatt.

We at The Vault will be closely watching the case, as a government request for TV and radio out-takes is generally considered akin to asking for a print reporter's notes.

-- mdl

Labels: Candidates, Crime, KSL, secrecy

This blog item caught my eye.

Bloggers' challenge: Why is Cache Valley so crime-free?

The Herald Journal in Logan asked the question, though it also seemed to be making a statement. I wondered how the newspaper came to that conclusion. I did some checking.

Both the state of Utah and the U.S. Department of Justice collect crime statistics and publish them. They do that so citizens can judge for themselves how safe their communities are.

Every police agency in the United States is supposed to follow guidelines for how to categorize and report crime but there can still be some variation in the quality of the reporting. For the purposes of this discussion, let's assume everyone reported crime the same way. Then let's consider the "Cache Valley" to be Cache County and compare it to other Utah counties.

County Population Crime Rate/1,000
San Juan County| 14,265 | 6.38
Emery CO SO | 10,698 | 10.75
Sanpete County| 24,196| 10.79
Juab County | 9,420| 11.04
Wasatch County| 20,255| 12.15
Daggett CO SO| 947| 13.73
Beaver County| 6,294| 13.82
Kane County| 6,532 | 15
Washington County| 126,312| 17.9
Cache County| 98,662| 19.41
Uintah County| 27,955| 22.07
Davis County | 276,259| 23.16
Box Elder County | 47,197| 23.37
Duchesne County | 15,701| 23.63
Rich CO SO | 2,040| 25
Utah County| 464,760| 25.82
Millard CO SO | 12,390| 25.91
Iron County | 40,544| 26.79
Sevier County | 19,640| 29.79
Carbon County | 19,469| 32.72
Summit County | 35,469| 34.45
Grand County| 8,999| 36
STATE TOTAL | 2,550,063 | 36.72
Weber County | 213,247| 44.64
Salt Lake County| 978,701| 53.78
Wayne CO SO | 2,544| 62.89

Nine other counties in the state reported lower crime rates than Cache County in 2006 — the last year for which there is complete data. (Morgan and Piute counties did not report complete data.) That neither proves nor disproves the newspaper's question, but at least you have some context.

Here's the complete report from the state of Utah. Below is a spreadsheet I created from the 2006 data compiled by the state.

-- nc

The badge and logo is from the Cache County Sheriff's Web page. I posted it only because I think mounted posses are cool.

UtahCrime2006

Labels: Crime, FBI