Sperry school district won't honor standing requests for records

Sperry school officials won't respond to requests for board agenda packets or other documents until after the records are created, Superintendent Brian Beagles recently told Neighbor News.
 
The district's legal counsel advised Beagles that the state Open Records Act doesn't require the creation of any records in response to a record request, Beagles told a Neighbor News editor who had requested the board's agenda packet.
 
"Accordingly, there were no documents responsive to your request at the time of the request and your 'standing' request is not allowed by Oklahoma law," Beagles said.
 
"The District will, of course, respond to your or any person's request in a timely manner for documents after they come into existence," he said.
 
Beagles has refused to provide the school board's agenda packets to the public until the day after the meetings.
 
Now, Beagles says the public cannot request the packets in advance.
 
He said the legal counsel, presumably the Tulsa law firm of Rosenstein, Fist & Ringold, told him that "no law ... requires the Sperry School District or any other public body in Oklahoma to respond to a standing request as to documents that are not in existence or in its custody when the requestor issues its 'standing request'."
 
The Open Records Act says it "does not impose any additional recordkeeping requirements on public bodies or public officials." (Okla. Stat. tit. 51, § 24A.18)
 
The Neighbor News editor didn't ask Sperry school officials to create documents. Instead, he asked to inspect the school board's agenda packet once it was created, which it would be.
 
The purpose of the Oklahoma Open Records Act is "to ensure and facilitate the public's right of access to and review of government records so they may efficiently and intelligently exercise their inherent political power." (Okla. Stat. tit. 51, § 24A.2)
 
The Open Meeting Act emphasizes that this state's public policy is "to encourage and facilitate an informed citizenry's understanding of the governmental processes and governmental problems." (OKLA. STAT. tit. 25, § 302)
 
"The Act serves to inform the citizenry of the governmental problems and processes by informing them of the business the government will be conducting,” said the Court of Civil Appeals in 2008. (Wilson v. City of Techumseh, 2008 OK CIV APP 84, ¶ 10)
 
Beagles, aided by Rosenstein, Fist & Ringold, is doing his damnedest to thwart the public's right (obligation) to know and have some say on Sperry school board decisions before they're a done deal.
 
Blame it on the Sperry school board: President Jeff Carter, Vice President Gary Juby, Clerk April Bowman, Derrell Morrow and Mechelle Beats.
 
They're the ones letting Beagles get away with it.
 

 
Joey Senat, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
OSU School of Media & Strategic Communications

The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the commentators and do not necessarily represent the position of FOI Oklahoma Inc., its staff, or its board of directors. Differing interpretations of open government law and policy are welcome.

OU, OSU public records procedures seem to violate AG's open records opinion

All public records requests to OSU and OU are funneled through one office on each campus even though a 2005 attorney general opinion requires that government documents be made available where they "are located in the ordinary course of business."

OU's open records office includes one records clerk and an assistant, The Oklahoman recently noted.

OU General Counsel Anil Golahalli told the newspaper that sending the more than 3,000 records requests a year through one person is efficient. He said OU officials take one or two days to respond to a basic records request.

At OSU, records requests are funneled through university spokesman Gary Shutt’s office.

"The law allows us to handle and develop a process for open records that we think makes sense for our organization,” Shutt told The Oklahoman. "It’s perfectly within our legal right.”

But in 2005, state Attorney General Drew Edmondson said, “If a public body has more than one office location, its records must be maintained and made available to the public at the office where the records are located in the ordinary course of business. (2005 OK AG 3, ¶ 10)

“The Act does not expressly address at what office location records must be maintained and made available to the public if a public body has more than one office location," said Edmondson.

"It is our opinion that the ‘prompt, reasonable access’ to records that the public must be provided under the Act indicates the Legislature’s intent that the public body's records shall be maintained and available at the office where the records are located in the ordinary course of business,” he reasoned. (Id. ¶ 8)

In contrast, the universities' practices create a bottleneck for requests and can result in much-delayed access.

This past spring, for example, an OSU reporting student waited nine days for Shutt's office to provide a document. Even though the record was in the hands of the person being interviewed, the student was told she would have to go through Shutt's office to obtain the information.

When the student returned to Shutt's office for a third time to ask about the request, she pointed out the requirement that records be made available at the location where they are kept and in a prompt manner.

She was told by Carrie Hulsey-Greene, OSU associate director of communication services, “The problem is, we can’t expect everyone to stop doing their regular jobs just to do open records.”

Shutt agreed that responding to records requests is part of the job but told the student, “If you are doing three other things during the day, [the request] might not jump to the top, depending on what their supervisor is having them do.

“Our intent is to make the records available as soon as possible,” Shutt said. “Clearly, it should not have taken as long as it did.”

Oklahoma public agencies and officials do have a “duty” to provide public records to the public.

“The purpose of the Act is ‘to ensure and facilitate the public’s right of access to and review of government records so they may efficiently and intelligently exercise their inherent political power,'" said Edmondson in 2005. (Id. ¶ 4)

"To fulfill this purpose the Act imposes a duty on a public body to ‘provide prompt, reasonable access to its records’ and make a person available to release records during the public body’s regular business hours,” he said.

Edmondson has defined "prompt" as "only the time to locate and compile the records." (1999 OK AG 58, ¶ 15)

That is best accomplished by the person who already has the document in hand at the time of the request.

Public bodies may establish procedures for access to public records but “such rules must be consistent with the letter and spirit of the Open Records Act,” Edmondson said in 1999. (1999 OK AG 55, ¶ 25)

OSU's and OU's procedures for records requests are at best the antithesis of that spirit and at worst a violation of Edmondson's binding opinion.

Joey Senat, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

OSU School of Journalism