In my first post for this blog, I wrote about how Utah has a good system for appealing record denials. But the system is not perfect, and you can blame it on the lawyers.

Well, kind of. Here's why.

Reporter Steve Gehrke requested some documents from the Salt Lake County Attorney's Office. Last week, he received a denial and instructions on how to appeal that denial to the Salt Lake County Council. The council will schedule an appeal hearing before it. Here's the catch.

Salt Lake County Attorney Lohra Miller is the council's lawyer. For Gehrke to win his appeal, he must persuade the council its attorney is wrong; that the council should ignore its lawyer's advice and give him the documents.

Of course, we think the county attorney is wrong, but why should the council listen to us non-lawyers when it finances people with juris doctorates? And there's no requirement for the council to seek an outside legal opinion. (If the council rejects our appeal, we could take it to the State Records Committee but that means more time and effort.)

This structural flaw in the appeal process is not unique to Salt Lake County. I had an almost identical scenario last year when I tried to obtain records from the Utah County Attorney. A similar problem exists when the state of Utah denies a records request. The Utah attorney general will represent the state in an appeal. The attorney general also is the lawyer for the State Records Committee.

But maybe the Salt Lake County Council will surprise us and decide it's getting bad legal advice. Stay tuned.

--nc

The photograph is the great Phil Hartman as the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer.

Labels: GRAMA, State Records Committee

Monday was rough for public disclosure in Utah.

First, a judge excluded reporters from a court hearing discussing a buyout involving Usana Health Sciences Inc. (Maybe there's something in the water at Utah courthouses.)

Then we heard about a lawsuit filed by the city of Murray. The city does not want to disclose the names of disciplined police officer, even though there is a state statute specifically saying it must.

63G-2-301. Records that must be disclosed...
...(o) records that would disclose information relating to formal charges or disciplinary actions against a past or present governmental entity employee if:
(i) the disciplinary action has been completed and all time periods for administrative appeal have expired; and
...(ii) the charges on which the disciplinary action was based were sustained;

This strategy sure worked great for Sandy.

-- nc

Labels: GRAMA, Sandy, secrecy

The link from Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff's page to Utah's Government Records Access and Management law is dead.

Shurtleff, you might recall, has in the past made a big deal out of promoting GRAMA, so we assume he's watching this blog closely and the link will be up and running soon.

-mdl

Labels: GRAMA

Twice this week, Tribune justice reporters had problems obtaining the most basic information about a victim: a name.

These weren't any victims. They were children. The respective police agencies thought that meant they should not just give out the information.

In the first case, a 17-year-old girl died in an ATV crash in Sanpete County. The sheriff's office declined to release her name and suggested we watch the obituaries. A central Utah radio station reported the name and I confirmed it with a telephone call to the teenager's family.


The second case was a 17-month-old girl who drowned in Sugar House Park. Salt Lake City police declined to give us the girl's name over the telephone, as they do most adult victims, and suggested we file an open-records request. I then spoke with an attorney for the city who told me I should file a record request when it's suggested I do so, but read me the name in this instance.


Government agencies are reluctant to discuss children, and I understand why. It's human nature to protect kids. Lawmakers in Utah and most states have codified the instinct by closing to the public documents in child welfare matters and some juvenile court cases. News outlets are protective, too. The Tribune typically does not name child victims or even criminal suspects who are children as the newspaper would adults.

But it's a different matter when a child dies. Utah law does not require a dead child name's be kept secret. Neither does federal law.

In 2006, the National Park Service refused to release the names of child drowning victims on Lake Powell. The Tribune made administrative appeals and it resulted in the Park Service making agency-wide regulations requiring name disclosure.


************************

And now some easy news

A few weeks ago, I wrote the city governments of Salt Lake City, Ogden, Logan, Orem, Provo, Cedar City and St. George and asked for any audits, conducted within the last two years, on their respective fire and police departments.

The requests were answered on time with the cities providing me the documents or telling me where I could find them. Yeah, so I didn't exactly ask for the Pentagon Papers, but with that many towns, I figured there would be one holdout and there was not.

-- nc

Labels: FOIA, GRAMA, secrecy, SLC

Late at night, my mother calls. She has that tone in her voice that means something is wrong.

“Grandpa fell down and is at the hospital," she tells me. "The doctors tell us we have to put him in a nursing home. But, Matt, how do I pick? How do I know what place will really take care of him?”

She called me because I’m a reporter and I'm used to rooting out information. I tried everything I could think of to help, but found little to go on. In the end, my family placed my grandfather at Christus St. Joesph Villa, where he lives today, simply because he would be close to relatives.

The urgency and fear in my mother’s voice stuck with me, especially because I knew that so many families go through the same thing all the time. When my bosses asked me to write about aging from a state government perspective, I knew exactly what story I wanted to start with.

The premise: What information is out there to help people differentiate between good nursing homes and bad ones?

I zeroed in on government inspections, which are regulated federally but handled locally -- and which are clearly public records under the law.

The Tribune embarked on this project in November of 2006. The stories will finally appear in the paper this weekend.

The series got delayed by all kinds of things, including the state Legislature, elections and my move from Salt Lake City to The Tribune’s Washington, D.C. bureau -- but the biggest hold up was prying the records from the Utah Department of Health.

It took almost four months to get the first batch of data after The Tribune made its original request. No one disputed the information was public, but the health department had no easy internal mechanism to hand over the reports.

Although this is incredibly valuable information for those who are looking into placing their loved ones into a nursing home, the reports are not available online, nor in a file where they can easily be e-mailed, burned on a CD or even printed out. Rather, the reports are contained in a government database that resembles microfiche. A state employee had to go page by page to make sure he handed over only public data, not personal medical information.

The process was time consuming and costly and since they were not excited about doing it, the health department stalled at first. It took a few months, but the staff eventually warmed up and became more helpful.

What is a total challenge in Utah is a piece of cake in other states. Arizona has a really simple site that allows people to not only compare the last three inspection reports, but also click on individual violations to get more info.

Utah officials say they don’t have the resources to make such an easy-to-use site. So The Tribune has come up with its own database, and while it doesn’t include every report, it does include the most serious ones.

Here's what we're hoping: If you ever get that same panicked call that I got, you'll have a place to go to help you make one of the most important decisions of your life.

Labels: GRAMA, Utah Department of Health

I'm typing this on Wednesday night, just after I filed the article about the latest batch of documents from the Trolley Square shootings. Here's the background on how we acquired the reports and photographs.

In January, the Salt Lake City police department released its final report on the shootings. We here at The Tribune wanted the source material for that report and figured since the shootings were officially a closed case, we could have access under GRAMA. On Jan. 17, I filed a GRAMA request with the police department.

My request is summarized below... in the police department's denial letter. You'll see the department had arguments for why the documents should be kept out of public view.

I respectfully disagreed and filed a letter of appeal found below. On March 27, the Salt Lake City Corp. appeals board heard my case. I was accompanied by Tribune justice editor Elizabeth Neff while the police department was represented by an attorney as well as two police detectives who offered explanations for why the documents should be withheld.

My specific legal arguments aside, The Tribune's philosophical argument went like this: The police department's final report only tells us what it thought was important or wanted to say. We want our own access to the information about Sulejman Talovic, his victims and the killings.

The police department and the city's philosophical argument was essentially: We have provided information to the public about Trolley Square. Releasing additional information can expose our investigative techniques and cause more emotional harm to everyone involved.

The appeal board's ruling found agreements and disagreements with all the arguments and reasons to release some records and not others.

This hasn't been the first disagreement over records related to the Trolley Square shootings. The parents of slain victim Vanessa Quinn have gone to federal appeals court trying to obtain a report from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

This may not be the last time The Tribune asks for records related to the shooting either. There are still things we want to know about the shootings. We don't know if anyone has that information, but we're not ready to stop looking.


TrolleyGRAMAappealSLC.pdf

hppscan53.pdf


-- nc

Labels: GRAMA, SLC

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

Labels: GRAMA, State Records Committee

Sometimes records requests prompt articles. Sometimes articles prompt records requests. And so on and so on.

That's the story behind our recent exposé about a secret compensation system that has netted tens of thousands of dollars in extra pay for Sandy city's top executives. The story was prompted by a review of pay records obtained by The Tribune via a Government Records Access and Management Act request (and several years of further legal wrangling.) The article then prompted discussions that led to a new revelation: In the waning days of the court case, the city hired outside legal help - in addition to the legal services of its own staff of attorneys - to try to fight a court order to pay the Tribune's legal fees.

That prompted a new GRAMA request. And the city promptly turned over records showing more than $14,000 in payments to a downtown Salt Lake City law firm - and about $700 to the public policy expert whom Sandy officials have said advised the city not to release the records.

You can review those records, which include a detailed account of how the lawyers spent their $200-plus-an-hour time, here, here, here, here and here.

-- mdl

Labels: GRAMA, Sandy

The Tribune's Rosemary Winters reports that Sandy City Councilors will "take a closer look" at the city's bonus program, focusing in particular on why so much or the money goes to so few people at the top of the pay scale on such a regular basis.

But it doesn't appear the council is rushing to the human resources office to start sorting through the pay stubs. At Tuesday night's council meeting, Winters reports, it took four hours "to bring up the elephant in the chamber."

This week, The Tribune published details of the bonus program after winning a four-year legal fight with Sandy to have the public records disclosed. The council plans to discuss the budget -- including the issue of compensation -- during meetings the next few weeks and at a public hearing May 20.

-mdl

Labels: GRAMA, Sandy

Several members of the Sandy City Council are demanding a review of the city's bonus system following The Tribune's Sunday report that senior executives were reaping rich and repetitive rewards under the program.

Under the direction of Sandy's top brass, the city's attorneys spent tens of thousands of dollars fighting a legal battle to keep the program secret, much to the dismay of community activist Robyn Bagley.

"It disturbs me that Sandy fought for so long," she said. "These are government salaries that are funded by taxpayers. Transparency is critical."

Meanwhile, Tricia Beck, a longtime Mayor Dolan critic and political opponent, told KSL-TV the recently-exposed bonus program "is an example of greed, arrogance and entitlement."

KSL also hosted a conversation on the issue as part of its "Talking Point" segment on Monday evening.

-mdl

Labels: GRAMA, Sandy

This blog probably will write a lot about the problems with Utah's records and meeting laws. So my first post is about something Utah does well: You don't have to settle for a no.

Or at least not right away. Utah provides an appeals process far superior to any state I've found. If you request a record from a Utah agency -- such as a city, a county or a state agency -- and that agency denies you, the agency then must provide you an appeal option. Some agencies, such as Salt Lake City government, have entire boards to hear your appeal while other agencies allow you to appeal to an administrator.

If that board or administrator rules against your appeal, you're still not done. You have the option of appealing to the State Records Committee. If you lose at that committee, you have one more option: you can sue in state court. (A similar appeals process exists for the agency which received the request if the agency thinks your documents should not be disclosed.)

I worked in Missouri for three years and if an agency there denies your request, your only option is to sue. Lawsuits are expensive even if you win. Government agencies know that and it gives them an incentive to deny your request.

In November, The Tribune published an investigation on college drug testing that used record requests in 39 states. Among the schools who denied my request, only the University of Nebraska told me I had an administrative appeal option. (I did not pursue it.)

What makes an administrative appeal option so good for us citizens? Well, it's one thing for an agency to deny a record request. It's another thing for the agency to stand in public and justify the denial. Utah's appeals process keeps a lot of records cases out of court and gives a fighting chance to the little guys.

— NC

Labels: GRAMA, SLC, State Records Committee

On Feb. 6, 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune published "Payday Blues" -- an extensive look into the disparities in pay between public safety officers throughout Salt Lake County. The article was the result of a months-long effort, using Utah's Government Records Access and Management Act (GRAMA) to obtain personnel records from each city and the county government.

Recognizing that GRAMA denotes certain information as "records that must be disclosed," most of the queried agencies promptly complied with the newspaper's requests for the names, genders and compensation of their public safety officers.

But there was one city that gave us a tougher fight. Officials from Sandy refused to turn over the names of police officers and firefighters, arguing in part that disclosure of the identities of these officers might impair investigations or place the officers' safety in jeopardy. Among other arguments, they cited the kidnappings and murders of Iraqi police officers as evidence that it was bad policy to reveal the identities of public safety officials.

The Utah State Records Committee, which seeks to resolve public records disputes, disagreed with Sandy and ordered the city to turn over the information.

The city initially declined to provide segregated base pay, arguing that the committee's order and state law only required it to provide the sum total of all forms of renumeration given to each employee. Eventually, the city relented on the issue of salary, but continued to decline to provide segregated figures for benefits, overtime, bonuses, incentives and other forms of pay.

The city's response did give us enough information to work with in order to produce the Payday Blues article -- which revealed, among other things, that "with morale plummeting, many Sandy police officers and firefighters, who are among the lowest paid in Salt Lake County, are quietly seeking jobs elsewhere." Meanwhile, the article continued, "Sandy's top administrators are among the best paid in the county."

The article caused quite a stir -- and letters and phone calls we received from Sandy employees following the publication of that story steeled us to continue the fight for the other forms of compensation, particularly as several of the e-mails hinted of chronyism in the city's extensive bonus program.

"I'm sure the administrators are getting nearly all of the bonus money," wrote one employee. "I've heard rumors that the chief receives up to $10,000," added another.

Back before the State Records Committee, the newspaper won another order for Sandy to turn over the its bonus and overtime information.

But this time, the city sued to keep the information from the public eye, sparking a three-year legal battle which resulted in a judge's order for Sandy to disclose the information — and to pay the newspaper's legal fees of more than $30,000. That order, and other documents from the 3rd District Court case, can be found here and here.

Last month, The Tribune began analyzing those records. The resulting article, online now and to be published in print in Sunday's Tribune, reveals a bonus program that disproportionately rewards top administrators from all city departments -- and even provides Sandy Mayor Tom Dolan with a $1,000+ "thank you" bonus, each year.

Dolan's check pales in comparison to those received by city administrator Byron Jorgenson and 11 other city leaders who help administer the program, each of whom picks up the equivalent of about a month's salary in bonuses, year after year.

Meanwhile, most city employees who do get bonuses get the equivalent of a few day's pay. And hundreds get nothing at all.

In the wake of the Payday Blues article, Sandy's police officers and firefighters were given substantial raises. Recent interviews with officers indicates that morale appears to have improved and the rapid emigration of officers to other, better-paying municipalities has slowed.

What will be the result of our article about Sandy's secret bonus program? We'll be watching closely.

- mdl/mc

Labels: GRAMA, Sandy