Report: After Michigan FOIAs, Wayne State takes down labor studies website

from TalkingPointsMemo:

[...]

As Wayne State University considers what to do about the Freedom Of Information Act requests Mackinac sent over last month, lawyers at the school have ordered parts of the Labor Studies Center website shut down over concerns from Mackinac that they violate rules against political advocacy with state resources.

The Michigan Information and Research Service News Service reports (sub req'd) that Wayne has pulled down parts of its labor studies dept website while they're "under review by the university's general counsel to make sure they are not running afoul of state law."

Read the rest here.

MSU labor prof says university will comply with FOIA

from The Michigan Messenger:

When the Mackinac Center’s requested emails from the labor programs at Wayne State and the University of Michigan, John Beck, Associate Professor and Director of the Labor Education Program at Michigan State University, says his phone started ringing off the hook.

The media, both local and national, wanted to know about Michigan State University’s request from the right wing think tank. Beck, however, didn’t return those calls and e-mails. Why? The university did not receive a request until Thursday.

“I didn’t want to remind them, in case they forgot about us,” Beck told Michigan Messenger with a smile on his face.

Regardless, he says, “We intend to fully comply with the law.” — though the Mackinac Center might be surprised at the response costs.

Read the rest here.

Disputing the Claim that FERPA Applies to all University Documents

The general counsel for Central Michigan University redacted several pieces of "directory information" when responding to a FOIA request by Central Michigan Life for all FOIA requests submitted to the university from July 1, 2009 to Feb. 2, 2010. Nearly 21 percent of the 43 FOIA requests had information redacted on grounds of protecting citizens from "an unwarranted invasion of their privacy" and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

Chairwoman of the Society of Professional Journalists FERPA committee Carolyn Carlson said schools tend to "be very creative in the way they misuse FERPA," disagreeing with the university general counsel's position that every piece of paper held by the university is an educational record.

For more, click here.

University of Michigan Claims Open Meetings Act Unconstitutional

As a defense to a lawsuit alleging that a February 3 meeting violated the Open Meetings Act, the University of Michigan Board of Regents is asserting that the law is unconstitutional. The meeting was allegedly held to discuss an NCAA probe into the university football program, and the school asserts the meeting was closed for attorney-client privileged communications.

The university's brief argues the Open Meetings Act is an "unconstitutional infringement upon the Regents' autonomy and authority over the general supervision of the University of Michigan."

Read more about the lawsuit and defense here.

Detroit Free Press Wins Freedom of Information Award

The Detroit Free Press won the 2009 Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Award for exposing a pattern of abuse by former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick that ultimately led to the mayor's resignation and jailing.

The Free Press obtained more than 14,000 text messages sent to and from the city-issued pager of former Detroit chief of staff Christine Beatty. A three-month review of the messages showed that Beatty and Mayor Kilpatrick had lied under oath in a police whistle-blower case that cost taxpayers more than $9 million.

Read more about the award here.

Michigan Court of Appeals Allows Access to Voting Records

The Michigan Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to require the secretary of state's office to turn over individual voting records from the state's 2008 presidential primary under the state's Freedom of Information Act.

The court's ruling grants a political consultant access to presidential primary voters' names and which party's ballots they took.

For more information, click here.

Michigan Court of Appeals Asks Legislature to Update the State's FOIA

In a "friendly" lawsuit set up to determine whether emails from teacher union leaders are public records if they are contained in a school district's computer system, the Michigan Court of Appeals said no, they are not.

The Court also asked the Legislature to clarify and update the state's 33-year old Freedom of Information Act to address electronic records. Judges Mark J. Cavanagh, E. Thomas Fitzgerald and Douglas B. Shapiro wrote that the case presented a "difficult question requiring that we apply a statute, whose purpose is to render government transparent, to a technology that did not exist in reality (or even in many people's imaginations) at the time."

Read more about the decision here.

High Speed Chase Video Obtained by FOIA Request

Watch this video obtained by 24 Hour News 8 through a FOIA request of a high-speed crash involving a Michigan State Police trooper on September 19 when the trooper was trying to pull over a speeding motorcyclist.

A FOIA Request Yields a Cost Demand Figure with Two Commas in it!

Nearly $7 million dollars, with more than $3 million as a down payment.  That's the amount the Michigan Department of State Police is demanding in response to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy's FOIA request for documents regarding the state's handling of federal security grant money from 2002 to the present.  

The Department of State Police says the records request for all spending reports regarding federal homeland security grants from 2002 to the present amounts to more than 2 million pages.  

Get more here. 

Michigan Coach Backs Off Best-Ever Boasts, Citing No Data

Earlier this year, Michigan coach Rich Rodriquez had boasted that the football team would break a record for the highest overall team GPA for a semester this year.  But he's had to back off those claims after the Free Press requested details under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act, saying that the all-time GPA record isn't know to him or anyone at the university because the university doesn't maintain any such records.  

Rodriquez said his earlier comments were based upon an estimate of the all-time record team GPA, not an actual calculation.  Rodriquez blamed unnamed academic advisers within the athletic department for not telling him the numbers were estimations.

Click here for more. 

Michigan Governmental Units Feud in Court over FOI Records Request

In a suit pitting the Michigan Department of Corrections against the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office, a judge ordered MDOC to pay a fine and attorneys' fees to the prosecutor's office.  

The suit stems from prosecutor Jessica Cooper's FOI request for a list of names of prisoners set to be paroled.  MDOC said it didn't have such a list, but Cooper sued and a judge agreed that MDOC did not honor the FOI request.  

A waste of taxpayer money?  "It's silly that this had to play out in court and waste everyone's time," Russ Marlan of MDOC told Michigan NPR.

Listen to the report here.

Two Different Approaches to Email Use During City Council Meetings

First, let's start with an example of what not to do, brought to us by Seattle's komonews.com:

A Kirkland City, Washington city council member has admitted to using city email for personal use, including lewd conversations with his girlfriend. Discovered during a records request from conservative watchdog group, Evergreen Freedom Foundation, Bob Sternoff's emails reveal he was having racy conversations with his girlfriend while city council was in session.

The Kirkland City council voted to have a law firm investigate the emails, but they could stand a lesson from South Haven in southwest Michigan.

South Haven City Clerk Amanda Morgan addressed the City Council regarding the need for a new policy regarding electronic communications during meetings, including emails between council members and city residents.

In an effort to comply with the spirit of the Michigan Open Meetings Act, the proposed new policy is to discourage email use during the meetings and to use an "office assistant" feature to direct incoming emails to the city clerk during city meetings. Others suggest the policy doesn't go far enough and that emailing during a public meeting should be outlawed.

Michigan cracks down on tweets

Texters and tweeters in Michigan, beware:

Starting in September, Michigan jurors will no longer be allowed to send text messages, "tweet" or engage in other forms of electronic communication during trials.

The Michigan Supreme Court established the new rule Tuesday in an attempt to prevent distraction and outside information from influencing trial outcomes, according to the National Law Journal. The new rule requires that jurors be instructed ahead of time that electronic devices like Blackberrys and iPhones may not be used in the jury box or during deliberations.

Courts around the country have been grappling with the question of how to keep jurors from using Twitter, Google or text messages to divulge or gather information inappropriately during trial.

More here.

Records detail abuse of Detroit's emergency checks

FOI at Work!
Detroit city officials used 900 emergency checks in just two years, most of them for questionable expenses, the Detroit Free Press reported. The newspaper obtained records through FOIA that indicated these checks were used to hire a public relations expert by Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick during his scandal, to pay rent for the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center and even to buy fuel for city cars. Often paperwork was not filled out, which means it's unclear who authorized the spending.

The City of Detroit has regularly used emergency checks to cover hundreds of routine or questionable expenses, including thousands of dollars for a public relations expert hired by former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick in the midst of the text message scandal last year.

The emergency checks also were used to pay off credit cards for Kilpatrick, make nearly $1 million in rent payments for the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center and purchase fuel for city vehicles. Experts say the actions suggest a cash flow problem for the city because money should be set aside in the budget for basic expenses such as rent.

The actions also are an abuse of an accounting practice known as quick checks, a process to provide same-day checks to cover emergencies.

More here.

E-mail records reveal Bay City's strategy for responding to death

FOI at Work!

The Bay City Times obtained more than 130 pages of e-mail related to how city officials planned to address the death of a man found frozen inside his home after the city installed a "service limiter" on his electric meter. City Manager Robert V. Belleman provided "talking point" to city officials and had the electric department forward all requests for comments to his office. When state lawmakers asked for copies of the city's electric utility policies, they received them as a "professional courtesy." The Times was forced to submit a FOIA request and wait three weeks to receive the same information.

Following Marvin E. Schur's freezing death, Bay City officials communicated via e-mail as they worked out a game plan to respond to the situation and to address the public and news media.

Those official correspondences were obtained by The Times this week in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

The records, more than 130 pages of e-mails, show City Manager Robert V. Belleman began corresponding with city officials on Jan. 23 after The Times called to inquire about the death of the 93-year-old man.

More here.

Police chief used city credit card at casino, topless club

A nice example of local watchdogging:
Brent Liddy, acting police chief in Walled Lake, Mich., "inadvertently" used a city credit card at a local bar, Detroit casino and Lansing topless club, reported Spinal Column Newsweekly, which obtained the records via FOIA. Liddy paid off the charges with private funds, and an investigation is ongoing. When the newsweekly asked for a copy of the city's credit card policy, a city clerk asked that a FOIA request be submitted. The newspaper obtained a copy through another source.

Acting Walled Lake Police Chief Brent Liddy's use of a city credit card at a local establishment, a Detroit casino, and a Lansing topless club has prompted an ongoing investigation, and may lead to changes in the city's policy on employee and officials' use of municipal credit cards.

According to city credit card records obtained by the Spinal Column Newsweekly through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the card in question was used on Dec. 15, 2008 to make a payment of $105 at the Copper Mug in Walled Lake; on Dec. 17, 2008 at the MGM Grand Casino in Detroit to make a $1,054 payment; and on Jan. 11, 2009 to make a $600 payment at Omar's Showbar in Lansing.

At least three city officials have confirmed that it was Liddy who used the city credit card on those dates and at those locations, although some officials say that Liddy's use of the city credit card was "inadvertent."

More here.

Law center questions Homeland Security's classifications of 'extremists'

The Thomas More Law Center is asking the Department of Homeland Security to explain why it classifies "Americans who oppose abortion, support 2nd Amendment gun rights and dislike lax immigration law enforcement" extremists, WorldNetDaily reported. The question stems from a right wing extremism report that alerted police to these American "extremists."

The Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, Mich., says it has filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Department of Homeland Security demanding why it calls Americans who oppose abortion, support 2nd Amendment gun rights and dislike lax immigration law enforcement "extremists."

"This is not an intelligence report but a diatribe against those who oppose the policies of the Obama administration," said Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel for the organization.

"It is a declaration of war against the American people and our constitution. It is a prelude to extreme gun control legislation and hate speech laws targeting Christian churches and others who oppose abortion and same sex marriage," he continued. "The federal government should be focusing its attention on the 35 radical Muslim compounds in the U.S. training its followers on how to kidnap and kill Americans."

More here.

School travel expenses raise questions in Mich.

FOI at Work!
A Flint Journal review of Genesee County school system's receipts and expense records reveal that administrators and educators are staying at three- and four-star hotels while attending conferences in America's vacation meccas. An average of $16,000 was spent by the school districts in the past two and a half years to send school board members and superintendents on trips. Expenses charged to the district include $420 per night hotel accommodations and a $61 steak dinner (for one).

When local school leaders hit up resort hotels and dine in pricey restaurants, the tab adds up quickly -- and all at the taxpayers' expense.

A Flint Journal review of more than a thousand pages of receipts, check orders and expense forms revealed that the top brass in Genesee County's 22 public school districts have spent at least $365,000 on travel since July 2006.

For some districts, that figure includes airfare to vacation hot spots, fancy meals, car rentals and at least one alcoholic drink. It also includes board mileage reimbursement and fees for board certification classes at in-state conferences.

More here.

Sun isn't shining brightly in Midwestern states

In honor of Sunshine Week, the Citizen Advocacy Center released a study on open-government laws in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota. The research shows that open-government laws are "sporadically enforced," training for state employees on these policies is poor, and citizens are not provided with opportunities to participate rather than just attend meetings. Reports are available for each of the five states on the Midwest Democracy Network Web site, linked below.

While every state in the nation has laws that require public access to government records and meetings, in five Midwestern states that were recently analyzed, documents are often kept secret and doors can remain tightly closed.

According to a study released Wednesday by the Citizen Advocacy Center in celebration of Sunshine Week (March 15-21), open government laws in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota have systemic barriers that chill public participation and access to government, which weakens our democratic system designed to be by, for and of the people.

More here.

Troopers illegally shoot deer, try to win prize

FOI at Work!

The Traverse City Record-Eagle obtained investigative reports concerning a deer shot illegally by a Michigan State Police trooper from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources via an FOI request. The records show that Jeffrey Hadley and Donald Bolen shot the buck while on duty. They later loaded it into the back of the patrol vehicle, sawed off its head and antlers and discarded the rest of the animal. They claimed the blood and hair in the back of the patrol car stemmed from them transporting a road-kill deer to a needy family. Hadley later tried to enter the deer's rack in a troopers' big-buck contest.

A Michigan State Police trooper who illegally "shined" and shot a 10-point buck while on duty in a state patrol vehicle tried to enter the ill-gotten deer's antlers in a troopers' big-buck contest.

Troopers and patrol partners Jeffrey Hadley, 45, and Donald Bolen, 41, both of Cheboygan, illegally killed a buck sometime after midnight on Nov. 13 -- two days before the firearms deer season -- along Mograin Road in Cheboygan County's Benton Township.

The poaching incident kick-started the troopers' clumsy, six-week attempt to cover their tracks, though Hadley spent part of that time boasting of his monster buck and attempted to enter its rack in a contest.

More here.