NY Sheriff's Office Charges for Inaccurate Records

The Onondaga County Sheriff's Office in New York has found itself amidst a bit of controversy after a retired state trooper was denied a job as a volunteer mentor in Syracuse schools because the county sheriff's background check turned up a 33-year-old arrest for shoplifting, even though the case was forever sealed by a judge.

The Sheriff's Office admits that its records rarely show the court disposition of charges. In addition to being inaccurate, the records cost $10 to obtain. Robert Freeman, executive director of the state Committee on Open Government says the Sheriff shouldn't charge for these public records, except for copying costs.

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Investigation into sheriff's public appearance will remain private

Information regarding a federal investigation into Lee County Sheriff Mike Scott's appearance at a Sarah Palin rally will not be released to the public, the Naples Daily News reported. The Office of Special Counsel, which announced the inquiry seven months ago, cites the privacy exemption as to why it won't even confirm the existence of the investigation or report on its progress. The appearance gained national attention for Scott's use of Obama's middle name. The investigation was to determine if Scott violated the federal Hatch Act, "which prohibits state and local employees of agencies that accept federal funds from using their office to further partisan aims."

A federal investigation into Lee County Sheriff Mike Scott’s appearance at a campaign rally last year will not become public — due to concerns for the outspoken sheriff’s privacy.

A staff attorney for the Office of Special Counsel, an independent investigative and prosecutorial agency that announced the inquiry into Scott seven months ago, said he was not allowed to even confirm an investigation exists, much less report on its progress.

Privacy concerns will also keep the office from releasing any results of a concluded investigation, the attorney said.

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Reworked gun permit bill wins House approval

The Oregon House Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a gun license bill, The Register-Guard reported. The bill was revised so that instead of classifying concealed handgun licenses as a flat exemption, it allows sheriffs to release the records if there is "clear and convincing evidence that the public interest requires disclosure."

Records on Oregonians who hold concealed handgun licenses would be kept confidential unless a county sheriff decides to make them available, under a bill passed by a House panel Wednesday.

For most of the 20 years since the 1989 law allowing Oregonians to obtain a license to carry a concealed handgun was enacted, the question of whether records on those license holders should be made public was not a matter of debate.

That all changed last April, when the Jackson County Circuit Court ruled that the names of individuals who request a concealed handgun license are public records unless the individuals specify that they don’t want any personal information released.

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Interesting FOI Developments in AZ....Well Worth a Read

How close did I come to getting arrested by Maricopa County sheriff's deputies today? As Maxwell Smart would say, "Missed it by that much."

The problem: I had the nerve to want to look at the same public records that sheriff's deputies were scouring at the City of Phoenix public records counter.

First, a little background.

You'll recall that Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon has been putting a lot of political heat on Sheriff Joe Arpaio in recent months, ripping Arpaio for conducting "crime-supression sweeps" that are really intended to find illegal immigrants. At a luncheon in March to honor Cesar Chavez, Gordon said the Sheriff's Office was doing little more than locking up "brown people with broken tail lights." He reiterated the theme in a May 2008 Latino Perspectives Magazine article, writing that Arpaio has "created a 'Sanctuary County for Felons' with his reckless priorities–that target brown skin and cracked tail lights– instead of killers and drug dealers."

Pretty harsh words, and when the sheriff gets attacked, he bites back. In late April, the Sheriff's Office put in a public records request for every e-mail obtained or received from the mayor and a bunch of his staff members, including City Manager Frank Fairbanks. Arpaio also wants to see the mayor's meeting calendar and cell phone records. As New Times columnist Sarah Fenske wrote last month, the request appears to be a fishing expedition for any records that could harm the mayor politically.

More here.