OK, all you Standard-Examiner bashers, here' some legitimate meat for you to dig into. Below is the text of a press release from the Sierra Club's Conservation Chair, Dan Schroeder:
For Immediate ReleaseNothing in the Std-Ex I notice, which is surprising, since the Std-Ex did a story by Mr. Schwebke over a week ago reporting that the committee was going to issue a decision on the Sierra Club's GRAMA request for gondola-related emails. Now that the committee, appointed by Mayor Godfrey, has refused to make these public documents public, no story. Kind of curious, no?
Statement from Dan Schroeder, Conservation Chair of the Ogden Sierra Club
Re: Ogden City's incomplete responses to records requests
Date: October 4, 2007
Over the last two years, the Ogden City Administration has withheld a great deal of information about the so-called "gondola project" from the public. In our attempt to educate the public about this city proposal, the Ogden Sierra Club has filed several requests under Utah's Government Records Access Management Act (GRAMA). The city has repeatedly withheld records that would be responsive to our requests, but failed to provide adequate justification for withholding these records. The city has also delayed many of its responses unreasonably, and has failed to locate relevant documents that were later proved to exist.
The recent decision of the city's Records Review Board, and the city's response to the decision, provide another example of how hard it is for the public to extract information from the administration. Whereas the GRAMA statute places the burden of proof on the government to demonstrate that a record can be withheld, the Board placed the burden of proof on the Sierra Club and declined to even let us see most of the evidence that we would have needed to argue the case. The Board did instruct the city to provide us with a list of the withheld records, but the city's "list" provides almost no detail, lumping undisclosed numbers of documents into broad categories such as "correspondence" and "draft agreements". Courts have repeatedly found that summary descriptions such as these are not adequate to comply with open records laws.
It should be noted that the Records Review Board is appointed by the mayor, and that one of its three members is a city employee.
The Sierra Club has made every attempt to resolve this matter at the lowest possible level. The lack of cooperation from the Ogden City Administration has been extremely discouraging. They're basically daring us to take them to court. Fortunately for the Sierra Club, the GRAMA statute allows for the recovery of attorney's fees when the requester prevails.
The gondola project remains of great interest to the citizens of Ogden. For two years it has delayed further work on ground-based transit improvements in Ogden. Although some details of the gondola plan have apparently changed in recent months, the gondola itself is still a priority of the administration, which just signed an
agreement with UTA to exchange $247,500 to be spent on gondola-related studies. Many of the records being sought by the Sierra Club relate to the UTA agreement and the city's specific intentions for spending this money.
A separate hearing before the city's Records Review Board, on a related records request from the Ogden Sierra Club, is scheduled for the morning of October 12.
Dan Schroeder, Conservation Chair
Ogden Sierra Club
Is the Std-Ex asking the Mayor why the committee he appointed is refusing to make the gondola emails available? [Considering the embarrassment it caused the mayor the last time the Sierra Club extracted emails by GRAMA request the mayor wanted kept secret, I can see why he's has ordered the committee he appointed to stonewall further requests.] Is the Std-Ex asking the Mayor what he's trying to hide by refusing to release the gondola emails? And since the Std-Ex is so interested in examining candidates motives these days, perhaps Mr. Schwebke could inquire of the Mayor what his motive is in refusing... yet again... to supply the press and the public with information about what he and his cronies are up to.
And no coverage, not even a notice, of the committee's decision or the Sierra Club press release and reaction. On a gondola matter. Mid-election.
Have at 'em, ladies and gents. They've dropped the ball on this one.
