Happy Birthday, Public Records Requests!

July marks the one year anniversary of my first public records request about the Shoe Creek TND.  Unfortunately, this is a bittersweet birthday celebration because I have not been allowed to actually see some of those records for this entire year.  Perhaps next Monday the court will require the City of Central to at least tell us what those records are and how they are doing.
    On Monday, Judge Johnson will hear arguments in a Motion to Compel a Privilege Log.  Put simply, the City of Central admits to having withheld certain documents about the Shoe Creek TND from the public records requests, and the law provides that the City must identify the records withheld and state the provision of the law that allows them to withhold it. Such a list of documents would be called a Privilege Log, and the City does not want to provide that.
    In the movies when the bad guy holds a hostage, the police or the family requires “proof of life” before they will negotiate or pay the ransom.  I’m not asking to see anything the City of Central is not required to release, but I am asking for “proof of life” in the form of a Privilege Log.  If I can’t spend this first birthday WITH those records, at least tell me their names and tell me they are safe and secure.
    All of these efforts not to allow a citizen to see what steps were taken and what was said by elected officials, city employees and contractors is troubling to me.  Either what was said and done was lawful and ethical or it was not.  Why not remove all doubt and produce the documents?
    The public records law does not REQUIRE the city to withhold documents, it simply ALLOWS the city to do so.  I am reminded of a much larger public records request than mine which happened about 4 years ago here in Central.  A key player in the incorporation of the City and the creation of the School System was presented with boxes of his printed out emails so that he could go through them and withhold anything he thought was privileged.  Not even opening the boxes, he said “Release them all, I have nothing to hide.”
    After the City told the court in January that all of the records had been released, I received another 1,000 pages in May. With that track record, I don’t think it at all unreasonable to ask the City of Central to at least identify, as is required by law, what records they are still refusing to release, and why.  At least then I could celebrate this one-year birthday of the public records requests secure in the knowledge that I know where those records have been all this time and that they are safe and secure, although unattainable.  That would be Good News for a Great City.