What To Look For Today

[Jim O'Bryan]

Today is yet another deadline for the City of Lakewood to turn over what has been deemed as public documents by the courts. The City of Lakewood has fought the ever growing number of records requests about the hospital, hiring practices, elections, and city employees lying under oath, have been refused for a variety of reasons that seem to change like the days on the calendar. First it was HIPAA, then that was proven false, then it was "a land deal" which was proven wrong, as land deals are only secret during the bidding process. Then they hid behind we have a huge signed agreement with all parties, which was proven never to be a real signed agreement. Yet another lie.

And as the City refused, more requests from more people came in, and so the amount grew, as City of Lakewood continued to drag their feet.

The number City Hall claims, no basisis in fact, is that the request could "cover 1,000 pages," next court day, "10,000 pages," next court date, "15,000 pages" next court date, 1000,000 pages, no 500,000 pages.... All false.

So watch for an exact count that would prove the City of Lakewood has at least looked for the documents.

Or watch for the name of the document company they hired to check the documents.

Without either of these, City Hall is just lying and dragging their feet again.

.

[Mark Kindt]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record:

Unless the City of Lakewood has retained a third-party e-discovery vendor/consultant with respect to these pending records requests, the City continues to act in bad faith to the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals.

The only way for the requested digital records to be reviewed and screened competently is for a typical local or national e-discovery consultant to do so. Anything else is a sham or a pretense.

I remain deeply concerned that the basic accountability problems for the City (that I have described elsewhere on the Deck), now have begun to taint the state court system.

[Bridget Conant]

On 4/06/2017, the justices of the Ohio Appeals Court issued a judgement entry, which clearly stated that "The court directs the parties to continue endeavoring to resolve this case through the disclosure of public records."

What could be more clear?

[Mark Kindt]

A note of clarification: My posts here have been directed to the Essi Mandamus Action in the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals on his denied public records requests.

I have it on good authority, that at least two other journalists have had their requests for access to public records denied.

If you have submitted a records request to the City of Lakewood and had it denied in whole or in part, I would like to hear from you. I'd like to keep a tally on this problem.

Feel free to email me at mkindt@kindt.com or sent me a note via the Deck.

[Bridget Conant]

As to what showed up yesterday:

NOTHING

Despite an order to produce an index and documents by May 1, the city responded with a request for a delay and were given until a June 12.

Nothing is showing on the docket. Nothing was filed as of midnight of the day the court specified.

Does anyone think this is AOK? That our city law director and Records Custodian has yet to comply with a court order to produce documents?

How easily we look the other way when there is wrong doing if it doesn't personally affect us. But it will, at some point, cost every resident of this city, and in more than just the economic cost.

[Lori Allen _]

If no documents were produced, then that is highly disturbing, yet not surprising.

Am I the only person concerned about the potential for document destruction? If these records are electronic and are found to have been deleted, will the city have to spend yet more money to purchase software and/or hire an expert to retrieve the deleted electronic files?

Retrieval may prove difficult if the city used a "file shredder" or similar program. In my understanding, these programs delete files and then complete numerous "memory overwrites", so that with each overwrite, the "shredded" electronic document is increasingly difficult to retrieve in a legible state. Some of this "file shredder" software can actually be downloaded for free, I believe.

In any event, if City Hall continues this charade, they should have a new theme song:

[Mark Kindt]

Generally, a party who ignores a court order (even minor orders) does so at considerable risk. Courts are empowered to issue sanctions, including findings of contempt. What Ms. Conant describes is highly unusual in our legal system.

At to Ms. Allen's point, destruction of documents that are the subject of litigation also carries serious risk of court sanctions.

From reading the recent filings in the Essi Mandamus Action, I think the City and its legal counsel are now at considerable risk for sanctions. I wouldn't want to be in their shoes.

The mere filing of a motion (as counsel for the City has done) does not relieve a party from complying with an issued court order.

[Dan Alaimo]

How can they not realize that the longer they wait, the worse it looks? And whatever sanctions are imposed will come back to the taxpayers.
They need to come clean now and release the documents.

[Bridget Conant]

This confirms to me that there are very damaging documents that the city and the Clinic do not want released.

The cost of the attorney fees and even sanctions are worth it to them to continue to shield them from the public. Is this a business decision on their part?

Must be some pretty intersting stuff in there.

[Bridget Conant]

I wonder if law director and records Custodian Butler has read this case, Philbin vs City of Cleveland, wherein the Appeals court issued a decision and order on a March 17, 2017.

In this case, a citizen, representing himself, filed a Writ of Mandamus when the City of Cleveland failed to comply with public record requests. The case is so similar to Lakewood's - citizen asks for emails, phone calls, texts between the Mayor, a councilman, a developer, a planning dept employee, and several others. The city dragged their feet, only released a portion, and heavily redacted many of the documents.

And like here in Lakewood, they failed to meet court deadlines on providing documents.

So how did it end? The court ordered ALL records to be turned over without redaction! And, for showing contempt for the court, they were stuck with all court costs and had to pay all the citizen's expenses in trying to get these records.

I think Cleveland was a bit surprised.

But, it shows the Eighth District Court of Appeals judges are going to enforce public records laws that give citizens access to the records that belong to them!

Read this interesting decision, it's barely 11 pages long.


http://cases.justia.com/ohio/eighth-dis ... 1490292755

[Lori Allen _]

The docket is somewhat difficult to follow.

Has the City of Lakewood been given an extension to release the records? If not, when will the court rule on whether or not sanctions will be imposed?

Meanwhile, it appears that the midnight oil continues to burn at City Hall! I hope that Mr. Summers seemingly special collections with Mr. Budish do not get him out of this one!

[Peter Grossetti]

http://lakewoodmayor.blogspot.com/2017/ ... their.html

Public records, their requests and their availability

Mayor’s note: As part of Lakewood’s longstanding commitment to public accountability, I am pleased to announce that the city today released the first 1,389 pages of what will likely be tens of thousands of additional pages of records to be released related to the negotiations and deliberations over the future of Lakewood Hospital and healthcare in Lakewood. The records released today may be viewed here.
As I explain below, any time the city is asked to release public records, we must first undertake a rigorous review to prevent the release of confidential information, such as a citizen’s or employee’s personal or medical-related information, third parties’ trade-secret information, privileged attorney-client communications and confidential matters involving pending litigation.
Today’s release follows the city’s prior release of more than 10,000 pages of other records related to the recent hospital and healthcare matters. You can find a listing all healthcare-related records requests made by citizens and responded to by the city government here. More current and historic information and documents on healthcare in Lakewood may be found here.
_____________
The work of government produces a great deal of records. The volume is generally the result of several factors:
· The large number of participants and organizations involved in just about every incident or subject handled by government.
· The long tenure of a subject, with a large number of iterations of every facet and fact at play. Many issues in government are discussed for months or even years, and so there is considerable back and forth discussing the various topics.
· The complicated nature of many subjects.
In a bygone era, most of the records were on paper. When I become mayor in 2011, the mayor’s office housed file cabinets for each mayoral administration going back to the late 1980s. It has become clear that the digital age is having a profound impact on the sheer number of records that are quickly generated, and saved, compared to the small number of physical records previously created. This is especially true when you consider email correspondence originating within and coming to the government.
Today, 95 percent of our records are digital—and there are a lot of them. The good news is that these records do not require physical space; digital storage is more robust than ever. For example, electronic records are maintained for indefinite periods of time and are almost never deleted outright. In fact, as of this writing the total number of records kept by our email archiving service exceeds 7.1 million!
Consequently, as a practical matter our retention of records is expanded significantly. However, while citizens’ access to records seems like an easy goal to meet, our own ability to categorize and review the increased volume of records prior to producing them has become more difficult. The bad news is that records requesters sometimes assume we can merely push a button and the requested records, electronic or otherwise, are extracted and immediately available to them. This is often not the case, particularly for complicated requests.
Public access
Most of the records generated by government are reviewable by citizens. There are a few limitations to this general rule. For example, the following items are generally exempt from disclosure under state law:
· Matters involving pending litigation and attorney-client privileged communications
· Matters of a personal or private nature (think Social Security numbers, medical information and other sensitive information stored in employment files, and third parties’ confidential trade secrets)
· Matters that, if released, could impact ongoing criminal investigations
· Detailed infrastructure and security records, the release of which could work to citizens’ detriment
Challenges with handling requests
Even though some records we generate are not public in nature, the vast majority are. The city is ordinarily very quick to respond to records requests, and we appreciate the opportunity to share information with the taxpayers who own these records. But periodically we face challenges that make this work very difficult.
Challenge 1: Sheer number of digital records to be reviewed. To appreciate the difficulty of responding to some requests, consider the fact that in the digital age anytime a document is created, typically multiple drafts of that document exist. Think of all the iterations of setting up a meeting or discussing a topic with multiple participants, the back-and-forth questions and answers about a meeting or a subject, and the volume of written communication, however brief and perhaps negligible, when previously these digital communications would have scarcely existed. Before releasing these documents, every document must be reviewed against the protected criteria noted above. This can take a great deal of time.
Challenge 2: Confusing, unclear and nonspecific requests. A proper public records request should be as specific as possible so as to identify specifically the material the government is being asked to produce. This specificity helps insure that the government understands what records are being requested and that all the requested documents are found and delivered to the requester. Typically, the more specific the request, the smaller the quantity of documents that comply, the more likely the documents are on topic, and the more quickly the city’s review and release of those documents occurs.
Requests that don’t seek specifically identified documents, but instead seek records vaguely based on whether they “relate to” or “regard” or “concern” other records, concepts or topics put the government in an unworkable situation. When it receives these kinds of nebulously-worded requests, the city is then forced to try to figure out what records might be responsive to the request, which can lead to folly and can dramatically increase the cost of response. And requests that seek the entire duplication of a body of records—one recent request, for instance, sought every one of my communications since I took office in January 2011—are improper because they would obligate us to review every one of those records, which could take months and months under the best of circumstances. In my case, that’s more than 137,000 emails by our count. Not everything that ends up in my inbox or comes from my computer email account documents the operation of government. Such a request, then, requires us to extract the records which may be of legitimate interest from all the extraneous records.
Adding to the complication in the Lakewood Hospital situation is the fact that several pending litigation matters remain open long after the closure of the hospital, and so producing communications generated within the context of those court actions requires an even more deliberative, methodical approach. Our law department oversees this litigation and the production of records, and it requires a considerable amount of time and expense to ensure the city’s interests in that litigation—and thus the taxpayers’ interests—are not jeopardized.
We treat records requests seriously. We remain accountable to those we serve. Therefore, we have added a public records log to the city website detailing all Lakewood Hospital- and healthcare-related requests and the dates of our responses, and we are always seeking ways to improve our turnaround time responding to requests. We will continue to whittle away at any disputed requests in an effort to respond to the requests we’ve judged to be so over-broad or improper that we cannot possibly respond.
As we release more pages of records, I will post here. Please point your browser to this blog for continued updates on our efforts.

[Bridget Conant]

I think everyone should start reading the "1398 records,"

What you will find is 1398 PAGES of duplications of the SAME email thread and virtually blank pages that contain nothing more than the signature line at the end of an email.

This is NOT 1389 records, it is that many pages. That is not the same thing.

They try to obsfucate by throwing out pages as if each page were a requested record.

Read for yourself and see how they are playing with the facts.

[Bridget Conant]

Further, the city has whined about the voluminous documents it has to go through. The number continues to increase, anywhere from 137,000 to over 500,000 depending on which document you read.

So, even assuming there are 137,000 records, at the low end of their estimate, the city claims it submitted 1389 today.

That is ONE PERCENT of the documents, per their own statements.

WTF. Months of delay and missed deadlines and that's all you can show?

I don't think those judges are that stupid.

[dl meckes]

I look forward to the flood of records!

Were they released today?