Is there a public right to receive a complete duplication of every city record?

[David Anderson]

OneLakewood.com lists the more than 400 public records requests received by City Hall since 2015 and responses to each. Tens of thousands of pages of documents have been provided to date.

From what I understand, the City has been sued for access to all records that can possibly be requested and I defend their right to sue but not the notion that every possible public record be duplicated upon request. Now, the court is determining whether some or all portions of documents in question are or are not public records. Law Director Butler has provided the court with responses so that the court can make a determination on each one in question which is the right of any City and I defend Lakewood's right to do so.

The primary request in question was for all email communications to and from Mayor Summers from 1/1/2011 to 3/15/2016. This is over 137,000 emails. Some of these would likely be personal and not public record. However, to determine which ones are and are not public record, the court would need five sets of each of the 137,000 produced (I guess there are five people who will be assigned a set, review individually, then come together to compare notes). If each email were just one page, this would total a 685,000 page zerox copying job – minimum. Is this a reasonable public records request? Those who made the request seem uninterested in narrowing the request to identify a specific individual or key words. So, Director Butler has appealed the court’s decision to produce five sets of 137,000 of emails. If the court comes back and orders these produced after appeal, well, someone will be standing at a copy machine until 685,000 copies are made. (That's 1,370 reams of paper - minimum.) However, the city has the right to appeal decisions that it believes are over burdensome.

When folks here on the Deck comment that the City is somehow not providing documents the court has ordered to be released, they are referring to the request for each of 137,000 emails covering five years.

City Council had legal representation with whom Council developed strategy and teamed to negotiate with the Cleveland Clinic. Should documents provided by Council’s legal team offered as privileged and confidential be unilaterally released by City Hall? Some believe the law prevents and makes illegal such releases. Regardless, without consent provided by the law firm the law firm would surely sue City Hall. The court will rule on requests related to these as well.

I explained Council’s use of executive sessions to develop negotiating strategy. Some here would have preferred that Council’s strategy sessions with our legal team take place in a public forum which would have been open for the Clinic’s legal team to attend. Such an approach doesn’t make much sense to me. Regardless, Council’s use of executive session was completely legal as ruled by Judge Friedman and upheld on appeal (an appeal which was Sen. Skindell’s right to file).

As I have posted before, residents agreeing and disagreeing with any decision, comment or vote I’ve made comes with the territory. I volunteered to file petitions to be a candidate for public office. I ran and won - twice. No complaints here and folks certainly do not need my permission to criticize me. However, most on the Deck continue to label me as unethical, undemocratic, without morals and corrupt and as one who has acted illegally. For a resident to approach me while I am at the checkout line at the Lakewood Library main branch with my children at my side and say, “Shouldn’t you be in an orange jumpsuit in some prison somewhere?” is beyond incomprehensible to me. Then there was that SLH meeting I attended last November.

I defended my vote in somewhere around a dozen discussion threads on the Deck last year and have posted occasionally since. I thought many of those threads provided some detail and depth into the actual Hospital issue. Honestly, though, I can only endure so many personal attacks without responding.

Yours in Service,
David W. Anderson
Member of Council – Ward 1
216-789-6463

[Michael Deneen]

"If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen."
Harry S Truman

[Bridget Conant]

Utter bullshit.

I'm hoping Brian Essi responds to this ridiculous screed.

Copying at a Xerox machine. What era do you live in?

[Bridget Conant]

Oh and by the way, there is no such thing as "personal emails" of Mayor Summers.

If he communicated using his official email account, it matters not if he emailed his wife that he'd be home late for dinner - it's still officially a public record.

In fact, even emails or calls he made on his personal account or with his private cell phone may be public records if they were used to conduct government business.

And courts are affirming that:

https://www.google.com/amp/www.latimes. ... y,amp.html

Texts and emails sent by public employees on their personal devices or accounts are a matter of public record if they deal with official business, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a unanimous decision hailed by open-government advocates.

[Lori Allen _]

Yawn. Is this even a thread?

It is basic psychology that when someone is backed into a corner, they make excuses and attempt to blame others.

Folks, as tempting as it may be to respond, it would be best to bury this thread, for two reasons:

1. Nothing productive will probably come of it.

2. It may be another attempt to derail and hijack meaningful Deck discussion.

I'm not trying to tell anyone what to do, just something to consider.

[mjkuhns]

However, most on the Deck continue to label me as unethical, undemocratic, without morals and corrupt and as one who has acted illegally.

This is an area where I'm not sure that an objective standard exists, and if you feel that this is what you have experienced it would be difficult for anyone to prove that your personal feelings are "wrong."

This said, I'm here nearly every day and read most of what's posted. I would certainly struggle to demonstrate that "most on the Deck" have ever applied to you even one of the labels which you list, let alone all of them. Who is "on the Deck?" I believe you have commented here about three times in 2017; if that counts, I think it means quite a lot more people are on the Deck than e.g. the five most frequent active participants.

If you don't care for people assigning to you with what you feel are unwarranted charges—entirely reasonable grounds for complaint on your part—I would like to suggest that you take a little bit more care in identifying whom you are charging with what, in return. Please, and thanks.

[Jim O'Bryan]

The primary request in question was for all email communications to and from Mayor Summers from 1/1/2011 to 3/15/2016. This is over 137,000 emails. Some of these would likely be personal and not public record. However, to determine which ones are and are not public record, the court would need five sets of each of the 137,000 produced (I guess there are five people who will be assigned a set, review individually, then come together to compare notes). If each email were just one page, this would total a 685,000 page zerox copying job – minimum. Is this a reasonable public records request? Those who made the request seem uninterested in narrowing the request to identify a specific individual or key words. So, Director Butler has appealed the court’s decision to produce five sets of 137,000 of emails. If the court comes back and orders these produced after appeal, well, someone will be standing at a copy machine until 685,000 copies are made. (That's 1,370 reams of paper - minimum.) However, the city has the right to appeal decisions that it believes are over burdensome.

When folks here on the Deck comment that the City is somehow not providing documents the court has ordered to be released, they are referring to the request for each of 137,000 emails covering five years.

Yours in Service,
David W. Anderson
Member of Council – Ward 1
216-789-6463

David

Thanks for stopping by.

City Hall protests too loudly.

Had they actually responded in a speedy lawful manner we would be talking about a small handful of documents.
But when City Hall goes to war with the residents over their legal right to know for years, things pill up.

Some of the ignored record requests have nothing to do with the mayor or the hospital.

How about those?

Will you agree, right now, that all record requests outside of the hospital debacle, will be answered in 14 days? And all other documents will be saved past the two year purge limit, that you and council voted to shorten from 3 years, while the hospital was being closed behind our backs?

PS - They can be shared in electronic form, which = ZERO reams of paper.

Again, glad to see you back on the Deck, let's make this city work together once again for everyone.

.

[Mark Kindt]

In response to Mr. Anderson's post, I would like to offer the following comments (some of which have been previously posted at length by me on the Deck):

1. There are significant indicators that the City of Lakewood acted recklessly with the respect to the federal antitrust laws and the federal securities laws;

2. The City of Lakewood lacks even a glimmer of a set of ethics-in-government policies;

3. The City of Lakewood is rife with material conflicts-of-interest, many documented by the Ohio Ethics Commission;

4. While the City of Lakewood prevailed in Skindell v. Madigan, it did so by filing a materially false affidavit with the state appellate court and then filing arguments based on that false affidavit;

5. The City of Lakewood routinely made material misstatements to the citizens with respect to the economics of the now-closed hospital;

Given the above, as a citizen I have a reasonable expectation that the City of Lakewood would diligently and timely comply with the public record access statutes of the State of Ohio.

As a practicing attorney, I work with major document productions every day with parties in litigation in the state and federal courts. There is an entire industry built around this. If you don't believe me just search "electronic discovery vendors" on your favorite search engine.

I find it completely strange that third-party lawyers, not employed or retained by the City of Lakewood, should be telling the City how, when and whether to comply with the Ohio open records statutes.

I also find it strange that somehow the City of Lakewood believes that it can "game" the Ohio courts with false affidavits and stalling tactics.

Given the above and what I have written here previously, my personal conclusion is that the City of Lakewood is intentionally violating the Ohio open records statutes for purposes of delay, obfuscation and to impede the First Amendment rights of its residents to criticize its government officials.

It is time to release all of the requested public records on an expedited basis.

[Lori Allen _]

As residents of Lakewood, what are we to assume when our city government goes out of its way to conceal records?

In my opinion, these sorts of actions makes persons think there is possibly some wrong doing at city hall.

What should we think now?

[Stan Austin]

Mark, thanks---- it's our stuff- regurgitate

[Lori Allen _]

I wonder how many of the requested documents were shredded? How many were shredded after the court order to turn them over?

This surely explains the hurry to change the records retention ordinance. I still believe there were records shredded after the court order was issued.

What are the consequences for not fulfilling a resident's requests? What are the consequences for not totally fulfilling a court order? I suspect that none of them care!

Mr. Essi, with your great knowledge, I would love to get your opinion of the subject.

[Jim O'Bryan]

In response to Mr. Anderson's post, I would like to offer the following comments (some of which have been previously posted at length by me on the Deck):

1. There are significant indicators that the City of Lakewood acted recklessly with the respect to the federal antitrust laws and the federal securities laws;

2. The City of Lakewood lacks even a glimmer of a set of ethics-in-government policies;

3. The City of Lakewood is rife with material conflicts-of-interest, many documented by the Ohio Ethics Commission;

4. While the City of Lakewood prevailed in Skindell v. Madigan, it did so by filing a materially false affidavit with the state appellate court and then filing arguments based on that false affidavit;

5. The City of Lakewood routinely made material misstatements to the citizens with respect to the economics of the now-closed hospital;

Given the above, as a citizen I have a reasonable expectation that the City of Lakewood would diligently and timely comply with the public record access statutes of the State of Ohio.

As a practicing attorney, I work with major document productions every day with parties in litigation in the state and federal courts. There is an entire industry built around this. If you don't believe me just search "electronic discovery vendors" on your favorite search engine.

I find it completely strange that third-party lawyers, not employed or retained by the City of Lakewood, should be telling the City how, when and whether to comply with the Ohio open records statutes.

I also find it strange that somehow the City of Lakewood believes that it can "game" the Ohio courts with false affidavits and stalling tactics.

Given the above and what I have written here previously, my personal conclusion is that the City of Lakewood is intentionally violating the Ohio open records statutes for purposes of delay, obfuscation and to impede the First Amendment rights of its residents to criticize its government officials.

It is time to release all of the requested public records on an expedited basis.

Mark

As always, thank you for weighing in.

I spoke with a couple other city halls and government businesses. All claim everything done on a government computer is a public record with the posssible exceptions of talking with their lawyer, or their doctor. To the extenet if they talk about their health to a friend, it is now a public record.

Strange, Lakewood City Hall, mired in the middle of our biggest loss, our biggest scandal, while some skim millions,claims the public has no right, we are way to busy...

What are they hiding? What has been destroyed already? Each destroyed document is another criminal charge.

Odd, I could have sworn hundreds have said, "It is not the crime, but the cover-up of the crime that always gets them."

.

[Mark Kindt]

Attached is a quick list of electronic document vendors in the Cleveland area:

[mjkuhns]

Given the above and what I have written here previously, my personal conclusion is that the City of Lakewood is intentionally violating the Ohio open records statutes for purposes of delay, obfuscation and to impede the First Amendment rights of its residents to criticize its government officials. It is time to release all of the requested public records on an expedited basis.

I feel it's worth posting a brief reminder, here, that Mr. Kindt is an experienced attorney whose past career in government service includes these roles:

• Special Assistant United States Attorney
• Assistant Attorney General (OH)
• Deputy Attorney General (WV)
• Regional Director, Federal Trade Commission

He has, indeed, previously made most of the statements which he summarized above. He began publishing the majority of them nearly five months ago, in fact. They are very definitely of a serious nature.

Beyond this I will only say that for me personally, as a resident of Ward 1, I would like my ward rep to respond to them in detail.

That isn't a demand; I'm not asserting that it's any kind of obligation. I don't regard posting to the Observation Deck as a duty of Lakewood City Council. But if my ward rep is going to take time to comment here in his capacity as a member of city council, then in my capacity as an individual resident of the ward he serves, I would like to politely request that he directly address the points raised by Mr. Kindt before commenting further on any others.

That includes my own most recent comment, which didn't really require a direct response anyway; but, for the record, I readily waive any claim to one and "yield up my time" for responding to Mr. Kindt instead.

[Mark Kindt]

Mr. Anderson can ask two questions to the City of Lakewood Law Department to help us determine whether the Law Department is acting in good faith with respect to the Ohio courts on public records cases.

1. Have they prepared an attorney-client privilege log on a 10-column Excel spreadsheet in the Essi public records case? Have they prepared any privilege log at all in any medium?

They have had more than a year to do this. Has it been done yet? If it has been done, when was it completed? When was it turned over to opposing counsel? Has it been supplemented? Has it ever been provided to the court?

2. Have they interviewed and/or retained an e-discovery vendor to assist in the document production?

If not, why not? If they did, when did they do it?

My guess to both of these questions is that they probably have not. That's how we can infer an intent of improper delay.

Citizen-journalist-activist Essi has been stonewalled by the City.

It makes me curious as to why the City of Lakewood has gone to such great lengths to stall the release of this information? Is it damaging? Well, if it's damaging, then the public really needs to have access to it. If its innocuous, why not just get it released.

A typical e-discovery vendor can capture the contents of a mail-server in less than a half-hour. Search software then screens the email. The techniques are well-established and most vendors have specific certifications of expertise. The requested 137K email could be processed in less than a week. Copy Max can shoot the copies in 48 hours. Let's stop pretending that there is some unique, impossible burden to this.

Mr. Anderson has created a straw-man argument.

Produce the documents now! If they are not going to be timely-produced, the citizens need an express commitment from the City of Lakewood that the documents are not going to be destroyed or computers/servers dismantled or otherwise impaired.