The City’s Pulse Newsletter, by Mary Souza
The recent moves by the City of CdA make no sense to me. In what appears a twisted contradiction, the city refused to provide key information to the Idaho Freedom Foundation, claiming it must protect identities, yet at almost the same time, an email of election questions sent from a citizen to the CdA City Clerk, was “leaked” to an online Spokane gossip blog within an hour of its receipt at City Hall.
The election questions were sent to Susan Weathers, the City Clerk, whose job it is to run local elections. During the 2007 election, citizen Kathy Sims was cited by the city for mistakenly registering her political advertisement with the Secretary of State, not with the CdA City Clerk because it was a local election not a state level election. These kinds of misunderstandings are usually resolved with a simple reminder, but our city attorney decided to impose fines. The city legal department hounded Kathy for well over a year, threatening her with enormous daily fees as they proceeded to drag out the time between their correspondence, seemingly to aggravate the situation even further.
Kathy is an amazing woman. She is strong, smart and tenacious. She built her successful local car business and is not intimidated by the city’s obvious political antics.
The city attorney finally settled the issue by assessing a small fine and ordering Kathy to read a letter of apology, publicly, at a city council meeting. Kathy sent her own attorney to read the letter at council instead.
Last week Kathy sent an email to the CdA City Clerk, asking rational, reasonable questions about some of the election laws, in advance of this November’s city council election. Her email was leaked to the Spokane gossip blog within an hour, where they ridiculed her questions and piled on personal insults. This Spokane gossip blog is the site frequented by CdA City Councilman Mike Kennedy, where he comments under his own name as “MikeK”.
Should we citizens have no expectation of professionalism at City Hall? Is political backstabbing and maneuvering the order of each day down there? And is this how our tax dollars are being used in our town?
Then, in a total twist-about, the Press reported yesterday that the Idaho Freedom Foundation was denied key information by the City of CdA. The IFF requested data about public employees all across the state. Every single public entity provided the full information, except CdA. Our city refused to give the first names of public employees. The legal department said the first names might reveal gender information, so first names would be withheld.
There are two laws in play here. One says that the public record includes the NAME, business address and business phone number of all public employees. The other law has to do with personnel issues and says that gender and ethnic background should not be listed. I called Wayne Hoffman, Executive Director of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, who was very adamant about the public’s right to know full names. Here are his key reasons:
1. No other municipality has interpreted the law to mean that gender must be protected by withholding first names. Using that argument, should last names also be withheld to prevent any ethnic interpretation because the law says that ethnic background should not be listed? Some last names might indicate the country of family heritage.
2. The State of Idaho lists all state employees’ full names, titles and work phone numbers on their web site. (they do not list gender or ethnic background)
3. The Idaho Freedom Foundation tracks public salaries and pay increases over the years, which is impossible to do accurately without full names. Johnson/Smith/Jones etc. could lead to major confusion, as could any partial name or first initial only. Employee names are part of the public record, according to Idaho code.
4. If a public employee has serious problems in one jurisdiction, then moves to CdA, it is not possible for the public to discover the connection without the whole name.
5. It’s difficult enough for the public to track how government uses our tax dollars. These types of roadblocks only make it ever more challenging.
Obviously our city needs to balance protecting employees from undue invasion of their personal lives and the public’s right to know how tax dollars are being spent. We citizens should have confidence that local officials can find fairness in a responsible fashion, but with the actions of our current city administration, that level of professionalism is not evident.
“Actions speak louder than words”, my Dad used to always say. This wisdom seems even more golden in the world of politics: It’s not what they say, it’s what they actually do that counts. Let’s hope that city hall takes heed of these issues and turns around their contradictory, disrespectful behavior toward the public.
The City’s position in this instance is absurd and indefensible.
Following the City Attorney’s convoluted logic, every City employee who appears on CDA TV 19 should have his or her face obscured, and of course there should be no caption with the employee’s name and title. Likewise, no City press release or website posting should include any employee’s name or photograph, because photos can identify gender, race, color, national origin, and age. Photos may also identify people with disabilities and can sometimes suggest their religious affiliation.
Similarly, every City employee who appears on CDA TV 19 should have his or her voice totally obscured since voice can indicate gender, race, national origin, age, and sometimes medical disability.
I’d suggest Wayne Hoffman let this drop. He has made his point exceptionally well, and the City Attorney has once again held City officials up for well-deserved ridicule.
Comment by Bill — August 2, 2009 @ 8:04 am
That is true, Bill. Every employee speaking at the council meeting is on TV with their full name given. Anyone watching could probably guess their gender and possibly their ethnic background too. Also, every citizen testifying at the council meetings must give their full name and home address.
There seems to be no concern for privacy on either count, so is City Attny Mike Gridley just playing politics by withholding info from the IFF?
Comment by mary — August 3, 2009 @ 8:30 am
Mike Gridley is not a champion of open government.
Comment by Gary Ingram — August 3, 2009 @ 9:49 am
Bill,
I don’t think Hoffman should let this drop. If this does not move forward the city will continue to hide behind their interpretation of the law and deny citizens our right to know and they are doing a very good job at it, while they leak their own agenda to news sources locally.
There is implied permission to continue to abuse State Law if we don’t push it.
The city needs to cough up the names.
Comment by Stebbijo — August 3, 2009 @ 11:36 am
Mary,
In your letter you mentioned two laws.
The only one I know that they are referring to is Title 9 – Chapter 340 C. It’s one law that dicusses “Records exempt from disclosure — Personnel records, personal information, health records, and professional discipline.”
There is no reference to “gender” which is the buzz word the city is using – claiming some sort of bizarre confidentiality with a ‘public’ first name.
You said, “The other law has to do with personnel issues and says that gender and ethnic background should not be listed.”
Which one is that?
Comment by Stebbijo — August 3, 2009 @ 11:47 am
This is section 8 of 340 C – this is the only reference I can see where the city might be using sex to interpret gender under the guise of “personal” information. But that does not work. It’s right there in bold.
(8) Any personal records, other than names, business addresses and business phone numbers, such as parentage, race, religion, sex, height, weight, tax identification and social security numbers, financial worth or medical condition submitted to any public agency or independent public body corporate and politic pursuant to a statutory requirement for licensing, certification, permit or bonding.
Comment by Stebbijo — August 3, 2009 @ 11:54 am
Mike Gridley is not a champion of open government, I fully agree! Oops I may have just given up his sex.
The only city to withhold first names for a cheesy at best excuse that it would give up the sex of a person, perhaps they should hide their name tags and names on desks, not answer the phone giving their first names only, sign a letter in only their official capacity without a name, and wear a disguise.
Without question Mike would be pleased to accomodate that!
Comment by Appalled — August 12, 2009 @ 4:08 pm
Welcome, Appalled, nice to have another voice on our site. Mike Gridley’s excuse runs very thin. It’s apparent that he has some political grudge or some other petty reason. The city reveals the gender of its employees constantly—quotes in the newspaper, presentations on public access TV, the quarterly newsletters they send out, the city web site, etc. Why would they change their tune for this open records request? Looks like silly posturing to me.
Comment by mary — August 12, 2009 @ 5:26 pm
Did Gridley make the decision? It’s a policy decision, so it should be the Mayor or council, right? Either they made that decision now or in the past, and if they did then the decision happened outside the public view, in violation of the Open Meeting law. If they didn’t make a decision, then their lack of oversight is also a decision, basically saying that they support what Gridley did. Either way, the decision process must be with the elected officials. Those are officials who, as seen in the most recent city council meeting, deftly passed the buck.
Comment by Dan — August 12, 2009 @ 6:01 pm
Regarding city policies: The city doesn’t always adopt policies. I have asked for written examples of policies in a couple of instances and no adopted policies could be produced. It was apparent to me that the city simply claimed to have policies in place. One might request the adopted policy for establishing substantial change in a subdivision.
Comment by Susie Snedaker — August 12, 2009 @ 6:30 pm
Wayne has bulldog blood, he will not stop until he has won.
Comment by Pariah — August 12, 2009 @ 6:33 pm
I thought that Gridley works for the city and city council. The post about the 8-04 city council meetings seems to reveal they don’t overule him since he has taken a position and spoken on the matter. Not one of them has the backbone to go out on a limb, state thier position, and stick with it. If they can default to Gridley they’ll say nothing more on it but a song and a dance.
Leaders – I think NOT!
Comment by Appalled — August 13, 2009 @ 10:32 am
Where such a controversy exists especially in no other City in this State I believe a responsible City Counsel would simply seek a 2nd opinion. If the City Attorney has spoken and that is good enough then we don’t need a City Counsel. Why not a 2nd opinion from a respected legal professional? Is that so hard?
Then again why not request the opinion of the County Prosecutor who is supposed to help the public obtain public records or the Attorney General’s office who surely would gladly give their opinion at no cost to the citizens of Cda.? Sure a judge can decide this and if so I hope everyone remembers how our City Counsel members cowers behind one person.
Comment by Appalled — August 14, 2009 @ 9:57 am
Appalled –
There was kind of a second opinion – that came from Allen Derr who is considered the state expert on public records.
The AG can do nothing. We have to file a police report to get the prosecutor involved – they can then request assistance from the state. I don’t know if Hoffman has done that. Probably should do it and it might save a day in court and be much less costly.
The emails state that the city would get back to Hoffman by the 19th – so it still might be resolved.
Comment by Stebbijo — August 14, 2009 @ 1:39 pm
Sorry, I read that backwards. the city is done disclosing anything unless someone does something else.
Comment by Stebbijo — August 14, 2009 @ 1:44 pm
I should have been more clear, my fault! I was suggesting that our so-called leaders not accept the position of Mr. Gridley unchallenged and they themselves could seek a 2nd opinion of counsel, the County Prosecutor, or the Attorney General.
I realize it is far more difficult for a citizen to do this although it shouldn’t be in such situations but as opposed to spending public money City Counsel could do all of the above free of charge aside from obtaining a 2nd opinion of counsel. Just seems the responsible thing to do and is most warranted here.
To Wayne Hoffman; Outstanding job!!
Comment by Appalled — August 14, 2009 @ 4:26 pm