One of the most frustrating things imaginable for a journalist is to watch public officials stymie requests for public information.
You send a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request with specific wording on good faith that it’s simplistic enough for whomever is tasked with answering it to handle it quickly and efficiently. They answer it, and of course the answers lead to more questions, which means more FOIAs. But some public officials get pissy fast…they don’t like their “precious time” taken up in answering FOIAs, so they’ll do the snippy thing and say that this or that thing is exempt, knowing that it’s not, but creating a roadblock for the journalist, who must then single-handedly take up each issue with the attorney general’s office, which takes time—months, frequently, and in the case of one instance in Edgar County, the Watchdogs are STILL waiting on some recourse from the AG toward the county for well over a year now.
Nevertheless, there are ways to cut through the crap, and we employ them. What is helpful sometimes is when a particular public official shows her ass, as in the case of Harrisburg’s city clerk, over recent FOIA requests for information regarding the devastating Leap Day Tornado of 2012. There are still a lot of questions, and answers are slow to come…but we’ll get there. In the meantime, here’s the most recent installment of the investigation, “City clerk gets involved in invoice cover up,” part 3 of the multi-part series, as your evening Read the Lead:
A shot of the damage left behind on the morning of February 29, 2012, in Harrisburg
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HARRISBURG—In the previous segment of Disclosure’s ongoing series explaining where the Harrisburg Tornado Funding has gone, Disclosure took readers through the preliminary FOIA examination of the invoices from Roy Adams Services to the Harrisburg City Council. Readers will know that things were starting to look pretty odd where the article in the December Special Edition left off, but that was just the beginning.
After the discovery that some homes had not been involved in the tornado, and were reported to have been undamaged by the contractors who had worked on them, Disclosure began looking into all of the facets of this complicated mess.
By the time those documents had been received by Disclosure’s correspondent, the date for the next Harrisburg City Council was drawing near. The correspondent attended that meeting, and started asking the hard questions.
The meeting proceeded with the usual topics, and the council carried along as they usually would, until it came time for the Commissioner’s Reports. When time came for Commissioner John McPeek’s report, a number of invoices were presented for payment again.
This time Roy Adams himself was present at the meeting. The council both congratulated and thanked Adams for his work in administrating the DCEO grant, as well as getting many homes renovated or rebuilt. Adams also returned the compliments to the council for their work in getting the funding for the jobs. To the other citizens present, this exchange would appear to be normal pleasantries, but after the recent discoveries, Disclosure’s correspondent noted that it seemed almost as though both parties were both passing the ownership buck back and forth.
After the presented invoices had been approved by the council with absolutely no discussion about the presented items, the correspondent asked to discuss the payments with the council.
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To find out what happened next, just click this link if you’re an e-Edition member, or follow the prompts if you’re new to the online version. Or, check the vendors list here to pick up your copy of the newest print version, which is only on stands for about ten more days…don’t miss out! You can pick up a copy of the December ’13/January ’14 of Disclosure at J&J’s Drive-Thru, Book Emporium, both locations of ROC One-Stop (Poplar Street and Commercial Drive) and our new vendor, Discount Food Mart, all in Harrisburg; both locations of ROC One-Stop in Eldorado as well as College Drive Liquor; and Galatia’s and Carrier Mills’ ROC One-Stop locations!