Terre Haute, IN. (ECWd) –
Michael J. Wright, the attorney for Vigo County, Indiana, in a response to a complaint file with the Indiana Public Access Counselor, claimed that a recent request for public records was nothing more than harassment.
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There is no stipulation to claim a request as harassment in order to not provide public records, but this appears to be what has happened.
Wright suggests that since the requester was trying to find out certain information on a Vigo County Employee, that Wright thought it to be harassment. Wright does not explain how thinking it was harassment eliminated the requirements to comply with the Indiana Access to Public Records Act.
He further stated the records, sent to IN-PAC were provided to the requester, however, the requester never received them.
Additionally, Wright tries to play word games and say that Bogue “never appeared” in the county office to request the records – implying that email requests did not count, but the PAC determined otherwise.
It appears public sector servants play the same games in Indiana as we have seen in Illinois.
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3 Comments
Warren J. Le Fever
Posted at 09:45h, 05 JulyIt’s been five or so years ago and I don’t read the Tribune-Star that often any more, but back then when the big push was on for freedom of information access, the Trib-Star was up front on that issue. They should ask what it is in the information request that makes that freedon of information request such harassment. Is somebody going to be embarrassed? Embarrassment is no reason for denial.
jannie
Posted at 10:10h, 04 JulyThis goes on all over. I did a FOIA request for documents pertaining to certain names – this was before I knew I could inspect the records myself – They asked for clarification, then they stated there was no records that had those names, but they weren’t denying my request. I informed I wanted to inspect – they said they were busy,many reports, etc. I followed up with e-mail asking only for the public meetings to inspect. They said they would treat as a new request. It was only after I quoted the statute that they had to tell me why they were denying my request did the comply and stopped stalling. So much for transparancy in local government.
Hawk
Posted at 09:12h, 04 JulyThanks for coming to Vigo county. We rival just about any place for cronyism, nepotism, sleeze and all around corruption.These people aren’t accustomed to being questioned. Please come back.