Monday, June 14, 2010

Records requests, run-arounds, and law firms! Oh my!


Operation: Open Records 2010 continues with some amusing results.

I received a letter this morning from a nice group of attorneys representing Grant County Public Schools. I requested the criteria used to evaluate their superintendent and a copy of the most recent superintendent evaluation. Here's the letter I received in response...



Now, really? Come on.
  • Sure, I addressed it to "To Whom It May Concern" because quite frankly I had no idea at the time who the custodian of the records was. What else was I supposed to say?
  • I've already received over 30 responses from other districts who were sent the same request worded the exact same way. No one else had trouble forwarding this letter to the infamous "To Whom It May Concern". Why did Grant County Schools have so much trouble with that?
  • The most infuriating thing is that the letter was sent to the Grant County School's address, not the law offices of O'Hara, Ruberg, Taylor, Sloan and Sergent. This means that the letter was received by someone at Grant County Schools, forwarded over to the law firm (which I'm sure is not cheap) for the law firm to tell me that the person I need to talk to is actually located at the address I sent the first letter to! Wow. This is why our education system bleeds money: rather than comply with a simple Freedom of Information request, Grant County Schools chose to involve their legal representation.
Is this transparency in public education and is this the best way to spend taxpayer money?

1 comment:

Huff7Bill said...

Jim? I'll bet their superintendent in Grant County is not turning into Divison of Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Officers all those illegal mis-registered motor vehicles being operated daily in Grant county.

Running directly to their battery of attorney implies Grant School system may be paying out taxpayer dollars for legal representation that is totaly unnecessay! I find it very suspicious of their closeness with local legal beavers for such a mundane request, especially in light of over 30 other school districts complied without bringing in legal beavers!

If I was a Grant county resident I would be inquiring how many tax dollars this Superintendent and School Board are paying for local attorney services!