Bradenton Herald audit

By Sylvia Lim, Staff Writer

Who to contact for public records (all 941 area code)

1. The Manatee County Sheriff's Office

- Major Keith Stewart, sheriff's office administrative bureau chief

747-3011, ext. 2265

2. The Manatee School District

- Margi Nanney, Community and Press Relations Officer

708-8770 ext. 2046

3. The City of Bradenton

- Bill Lisch, city attorney

747-6658

4. The Manatee County Administrator's Office

- Requests for records have to be made to a specific department.

Main line for the county administrator's office: 748-4501

Help line: 747-4357

MANATEE — E-mails and telephone logs at City Hall and the sheriff's office are public records that any resident should be able to walk in and obtain — no questions asked.

That's the law. And citizens seeking those records do not have to identify themselves or even state a reason for wanting to see them.

Yet a recent audit performed by newspapers throughout Florida found that 42 percent of the 220 agencies surveyed did not comply with the state's public records law, about the same as the last audit performed two years ago.

"We wanted to see things had gotten better," said Barbara Petersen, president of the First Amendment Foundation, a non-profit organization that sponsored the audit. "The compliance was the same as it was."

The two-day audit, conducted in February, was simple. A person was tagged as an auditor, and instructed to ask for e-mails and call logs from sheriff's offices, county offices, school districts and municipal governments. The records could be produced in paper or sent electronically to the auditor.

The auditors, mostly volunteers from news companies who the civic authorities wouldn't recognize, were instructed that they did not have to give their name, a written request or a reason when asking for these documents. Florida courts have decided that those roadblocks to unfettered public access are unconstitutional.

The findings: 51 percent of the school districts and 45 percent of the sheriff's offices in the state violated public records laws. A number of city, school and sheriff's officials also asked the auditors for a written request or a reason.

A Herald employee audited the Manatee County Sheriff's Office, the Manatee County School District, the Manatee County administrator's office and the City of Bradenton mayor's office.

No one at the sheriff's office could tell the auditor where to find the call log or how to obtain it.

In the municipalities, the auditor was referred to several people before being directed to a county or city attorney, who helped speed up filling of the requests.

Contrary to the statewide audit results, the Manatee school board was the only agency locally that responded to his request promptly and without questioning of the the auditor.

"We're hoping for 100 percent compliance, it's a very simple thing," Petersen said. "It's the lack of information, and lack of understanding and education."

At the sheriff's office

The Herald's auditor spent two minutes asking for call logs at the sheriff's office, and eight minutes being politely denied.

A deputy at the front desk of the sheriff's office, at 600 Eighth Ave. W in Palmetto, asked the auditor if he could provide the sheriff's office with a specific address. A sergeant, overhearing the conversation, came by and told the auditor that he needed to give them a reason for the request.

The auditor asked them if there was someone else he could talk to, but was told no. Before he left, the deputy gave the auditor a victim's rights brochure.

Manatee County Sheriff Charlie Wells, when contacted for this story two weeks after the audit, conceded that his deputies did not know how to deliver requests such as that.

Most of the deputies stationed at the front desk are in training, Wells said.

"The requests were made to the most inexperienced members of the department," he said.

The sheriff also noted that the call logs are housed in another building in downtown Bradenton, where the sheriff's office dispatchers are located.

Wells said the unusual request probably threw the deputies off.

"If they asked for a report, they could have gotten what they wanted," Wells said. "But what he asked for was in a different place."

There is a policy in place for processing such records, Wells said.

Requests are usually forwarded to a ranked official within the sheriff's office administration, who would then review the records and remove sensitive information.

"There is a good reason for that — because there are certain things an average individual wouldn't know that was protected," he said.

Citizens could also get reports at the sheriff's office records department, not from deputies stationed at the sheriff's office's front desk, he said.

"They don't provide copies of records," Wells said. "The deputies were taking police reports."

The sheriff stood by his department's public records policy.

"If someone wants it, they are entitled to it," Wells said. "In practice, is it a perfect system? No."

At the school board

Among the four agencies approached by The Herald's auditor, the Manatee School District was the agency that delivered the information sought in the least amount of time, and without roadblocks.

After asking for e-mails between the superintendent and school board members, the auditor was directed to a community relations officer. The officer called the auditor within the day and promised she would have the requested records available the next day. The auditor paid a small fee for the copies.

Manatee Schools Superintendent Roger Dearing, when contacted for this story, said most of the school board staff is trained to defer these requests to the community relations officer.

The officer knows where to go to get the records, he said. This ensures that the requests are met promptly.

But Dearing could remember the days when requests were lost in the deluge of correspondence and other responsibilities faced by school board staff.

"When I first came here, there was no organized process on whose assignment that is," Dearing said. "Everyone had to prioritize and were busy with their assignments, so the request would have to wait."

He couldn't say why other school districts fared poorly in the statewide audit, but acknowledged that having an officer who dealt with these requests streamlines the process.

The officer "has authority and ability to get the information needed immediately," he said. "I think we have a good process in place."

At the city and county offices

The Herald's auditor was met with puzzlement at offices of the city and county when he asked them for copies of e-mails between elected officials.

In both instances, an attorney had to get involved before the auditor's requests were met.

At the county administrator's office, the auditor's request caused different responses from staff members.

An assistant told the auditor that the county commissioners and the county administrator do not write e-mails to each other, and that all communication was done verbally.

The assistant became increasingly defensive and asked the auditor for a full name.

The situation was saved by an assistant county attorney, who happened to be within earshot doing something else. The attorney told the assistant to not make things difficult and took over the matter.

Half an hour later, another assistant provided the auditor with one e-mail.

Dave Rothfuss, the assistant county administrator, said all county employees are instructed on public records law during their orientation.

County Administrator Ernie Padgett makes it a point to remind all department directors to tell their staff about the public records law from time to time.

"Each department is the custodian of its records," Rothfuss said Friday.

An average citizen can go directly to the specific department to request the records they want, and they will be directed to the appropriate person, he said.

"A person will be able to provide that information — either a supervisor or the records custodian," Rothfuss said.

At the City of Bradenton, the city attorney's assistant kept asking The Herald's auditor for a reason for his request, and became upset when the auditor declined to give his full name.

After the auditor spoke with the city attorney, Bradenton Mayor Wayne Poston called the auditor and forwarded him the e-mails directly.

Poston remembered the request because it was vague.

"He couldn't verbalize what he wanted," Poston said Wednesday. "I told him 'I can give you all e-mails we have sent to city council, there were only two. We don't really do e-mails to council very much, but you can look at every e-mail.'"

As part of the city's policies, Poston said every e-mail sent within the city administration is saved.

"It's in the IT department, and it's never deleted so our council members don't have to keep them or track that," he said.

He said his staff has been told to forward such requests to the city attorney's office.

"He's the point person. He could explain what is available and what you can't have," Poston said. "I'd rather him do it than have someone on switchboard for two weeks and make a mistake."

Petersen suggests training be mandated.

In 2004, a similar survey indicated that the Bradenton mayor's office and the school district provided the auditor with requested records smoothly. But the county administrator's office and the sheriff's office asked the auditor to provide his name and other information.

"We went to the same agencies this time. We made different requests, but ran into same problem," Petersen said. "It's discouraging. We had a lot of talk last time, 'We've got to do better, we've got to do this.'

"But bam, it's exactly the same."

Petersen believes top state officials should urge agencies to improve their public records compliance.

"We need to have the governor and the attorney general say, 'You guys have to do a better job,'" she said. "We're talking about a constitutional right here to provide public access."

Florida's public records law, one of the oldest in the nation, was enacted in 1909. In 1992, Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing access to state government records.

After this year's survey, Petersen suggests that compliance could be improved if the state Legislature amended the law to include training.

"Two years from now, I would expect better results," she said.

Sylvia Lim is a criminal justice reporter with the Bradenton Herald.
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