Looking for everything under the sun

By Mike Wright

The secretary was suspicious.

A young man in the lobby wanted copies of e-mails sent during a week in February between Superintendent of Schools Sandra “Sam” Himmel and the Citrus County School Board.

Phyllis Geddes, the longtime executive secretary to the superintendent, thought something was up when the man wouldn’t give his name. She wondered out loud if he was a reporter and, if so, he should check with education writer Cristy Loftis, who could show him how to find e-mail correspondence on the district’s Web page.

The man refused to give in. Geddes, he said, remarked that she knew how to find out if he was a reporter. He insisted on getting the records and she told him to return the next day.

When he returned, he was whisked up to the executive offices where Himmel herself handed him over the e-mail from her office.

To Chronicle copy editor Wes Fulton, the whole experience made him uneasy.

“I admit it was very uncomfortable,” Fulton said. “Personally, I don’t blame her. It was very awkward.”

As part of a statewide audit by news organizations to learn local governments’ compliance with the Sunshine Law (see story, Page 1A), the Chronicle sent Fulton to four local agencies: school board, city of Inverness, county commission and sheriff.

Organizers of the audit sent specific instructions. He was to request a week’s worth of e-mails between administrators, such as the city manager, and the elected board. At the sheriff’s office, he was told to request a log showing one day’s worth of calls and then request a report from that log.

Fulton, who’s been with the Chronicle for about a year and a half, was instructed to not identify himself, but also not to lie if someone asked if was a reporter.

It wasn’t important whether he received the records or not; importance was placed on the process and reaction from government workers. For example, if someone asked him why he wanted to see the e-mails, he was to reply: “Do I have to give a reason to get the records?”

And the audit was conducted during four specific days in February. That proved difficult when one agency had technical problems and couldn’t get him the records until after the audit concluded.

Here’s how he fared:

The encounter with Geddes at the Citrus County School District office may have been more of a misunderstanding than a government worker’s attempt to hide information.

Still, Fulton said the difference from the district office between the first day he asked for the records and the second day was obvious.

The first day, he left Geddes his home phone number. She called later and said he could come by the next day for the e-mail.

The next day, he was sent to the administration office on the second floor and taken directly into Himmel’s office.

“She handed me the stuff personally, so I walked out with the stuff,” he said. “It’s like they couldn’t wait to give it to me. The difference was phenomenal.”

Himmel said Thursday her instructions to employees are clear: If someone asks for a record and it isn’t exempt from the law, get that person the record with no questions asked.

At the new Inverness City Hall, Fulton told a receptionist that he wanted a week’s worth of e-mail between City Manager Frank DiGiovanni and the city council. Someone came to meet him in the lobby and wanted to know specifically, which week? Fulton admitted that caught him off guard because the rules didn’t say whether it should be the current week or previous week. He said he pulled a week off the top of his head.

“They did kind of regard me like I just stepped off a UFO,” he said.

He left his name and number and had the compact disc of the e-mail in his hands the next day.

The Citrus County Sheriff’s Office has the distinct advantage of having its own record department. Handling record requests is second nature.

“They were the most professional,” he said. “They get these requests all the time.”

A records clerk told him it’d take a few hours to compile a day’s worth of calls. He returned later that day for the log, then picked out a domestic battery report to review. The clerk blacked out names of the victim and explained to him those names are exempt from public review.

It was also his most expensive request. Agencies may charge the amount of time it takes to compile the information. In this case, he was charged $28 for two-and-a-half hours of employee time.

Coincidentally, it was a technology glitch that stopped the Citrus County Commission office from completely complying with his request.

Fulton said he visited the commission office and told a receptionist he wanted a week’s worth of e-mails between County Administrator Richard Wesch and the county commission. She called the county’s technical support office and relayed to Fulton that they couldn’t pull the e-mails because of technical problems.

“They seemed the most eager and most friendly,” he said. “I didn’t get the sense she was trying to hide anything. She seemed disappointed that she couldn’t help me.”

On the third and final day of the audit, Fulton returned to the commission office and overheard the receptionist’s phone conversation with someone in technical support. He said the receptionist made it clear to the person on the other end of the line that his request should be given top priority.

The next day, he had a message on his phone that the records were ready. The audit had ended, however, and Fulton didn’t go pick them up.

The experience was interesting. “I was surprised how generally helpful people were in getting what I wanted,” he said.

But the experiment — a one-week snapshot on public records with such stringent restrictions — didn’t work, Fulton said.

“Honestly I don’t think it’s fair,” he said. “It’s just too stiff and it’s just too unrealistic. I mean, people don’t behave that way.”

MIke Wright is a senior reporter and assistant editor for the Citrus County Chronicle.

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