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Records/Archives in the News Part 02 01/13/00



Records/Archives in the News r991212a
There are 6 stories in this posting

Houston Chronicle 12/12/99
Archivist turns ?an obsession? into a calling at JFK museum

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 12/10/99
Without county, maybe historical museum will get the attention it deserves

Naples Daily News 12/12/99
County building department works to keep up with records for construction boom

The Post and Courier (South Carolina) 12/12/99
State FOIA tested

Spartanburg Herald-Journal 12/12/99
FOI request leads to confrontation

Associated Press 12/12/99
Government secrecy has deep roots


_______________________________________________________________
Houston Chronicle 12/12/99
Archivist turns ?an obsession? into a calling at JFK museum

by Michael Granberry
Dallas Morning News
<SNIP>
DALLAS?Near the beginning of the movie JFK, a car careens wildly down a 
country road. A pair of hands hurls a woman from the speeding vehicle, just 
as Air Force One and John F. Kennedy are arriving in Texas. 
Moments later, the woman is fighting for her life in a hospital emergency 
room. Dazed and hysterical, she?s begging for doctors to intervene. 
?They?re gonna ... kill Kennedy,? she says. ?Call somebody ... Stop them ... 
These are serious ... ? 
Killers, she?s trying to say. 
Despite the avalanche of criticism that followed Oliver Stone?s hit 
movie?despite the flaws, the flat-out falsehoods and the naked bias?there is 
reason to believe the scene with the woman actually happened. 
Or so says Gary Mack, archivist of The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, 
who in 1994 arrived at his job in the former Texas School Book Depository 
after a long career in radio and television. 
The incident involving the woman and the runaway car is one of thousands Mack 
has chosen to study as his life?s work. He managed to turn a hobby?which one 
family member calls ?an obsession??into a full-time calling, a passion that 
actually earns him an income. 
This year, it also earned him an Emmy, which Mack won as a co-producer who 
borrowed liberally from file footage and pieced together what became a 
riveting special about the darkest chapter in Dallas history. 
Since getting interested in the subject, Mack, 53, has accomplished what some 
consider miraculous: He appears to be equally respected by both sides in the 
continuing debate over whether the president was killed by a lone gunman or 
by a carefully orchestrated conspiracy of unknown origin. 
?As conspiracy theorists like to say, you?re either a lone-nutter or you?re a 
CT?conspiracy theorist,? says Mack, a bespectacled, scholarly native of Oak 
Park, Ill. 
<SNIP> 
<SNIP> 
He is much more of a CT than a lone-nutter, and he always has been. While it 
isn?t the museum?s job to investigate the assassination, part of his role 
involves keeping up with developments, and he has never been convinced that 
Oswald acted alone. 
To those who say a conspiracy isn?t possible because ?that many people can?t 
keep a secret that long,? Mack likes to say, ?Who was Deep Throat?? 
The identity of the anonymous source behind Bob Woodward?s and Carl 
Bernstein?s investigation of Watergate in The Washington Post has never been 
revealed, which raises other questions. 
<SNIP>
<SNIP> 
Jeff West, the museum?s executive director, says he hired Mack five years ago 
at a time when ?we needed to aggressively go after the photographic, video 
and film collections? related to the president?s visit. Because of his 
knowledge surrounding the event, Mack had worked as a consultant to the 
museum even before it opened in 1989. 
?It?s not that he?s academically, archivally trained,? West says, ?it?s just 
that his expertise is amazing. Somebody can bring in a shoe box of old 
photographs, and just by looking at them, he can tell you the time, the 
location and who the people are in the pictures. He has so much in his head, 
I?d like to figure out a way to download his head. Gary?s knowledge of the 
subject is nothing short of encyclopedic.? 
No matter how innocuous they might appear to the people who own them, Mack 
says the photographs and 8mm movie images taken during the president?s visit 
hold a power that can never be duplicated. One of his goals is trying to 
secure every possible image not yet recovered by the museum. 
?No one?s invented a time machine,? he says. ?The only time machine we?re 
ever gonna have are those images. So, if you have pictures, please bring them 
in.? 
But beyond the photographs and documents, the museum also hopes ?to be the 
first stop for people making a serious effort at trying to figure out what 
really went on. ... There?s a lot of nonsense out there about the Kennedy 
assassination. Part of our job is to clear away some of that stuff and get 
some straight answers.? 
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
No less than an hour is spent talking about Lee Harvey Oswald, whose 
background and behavior?peculiarly inconsistent with that of a killer, Mack 
contends?will undoubtedly keep people talking past the year 2000. 
He?s asked about an organization for young males to which Oswald once 
belonged called the Civil Air Patrol. And merely the mention of that subject 
lights a fire in the archivist?s eye. 
?Do you know who founded the Civil Air Patrol?? he asks, leaning forward in 
his chair. ?D. Harold Byrd. And you know what he did? He was the owner of the 
Texas School Book Depository on the day Kennedy died and had been for 30 
years.? 
As Mack is wont to do, he shakes his head and sighs. This is a crime for 
which the term ?incidence of coincidence? might well have been coined. 
?What a story,? he says. ?What a story ... Has there ever been one like it, 
or will there ever be again?? 
<SNIP>

________________________________________________________________
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 12/10/99
Without county, maybe historical museum will get the attention it deserves

by Laurel Walker
<SNIP>
It was a lousy send-off.
Waukesha County government shut down its historical museum, just like that, 
early in December, anticipating that come Jan. 1, this little gem will be 
somebody else?s responsibility.
The County Board is likely to finish the job when it meets Tuesday. 
Supervisors are expected to approve the museum?s transfer to the Waukesha 
County Historical Society along with $215,000 a year for the next three years 
to run it.
It takes more than $215,000 to run the museum. By the county?s own estimates, 
it would spend about $260,000 next year, $270,000 the year after and $287,000 
in 2002 if it continued the operation.
So for the first time, the Historical Society will have to turn fund-raiser, 
beating the bushes for considerable private donations to offset costs just to 
maintain the status quo.
There?s absolutely no assurance, by the way, that the county subsidy won?t be 
squeezed in years beyond.
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
The museum has always been a disenfranchised stepchild of county government. 
You have to believe that with the Historical Society at its helm, the museum 
will be a favored child.
Years ago, when county supervisors were surveyed in writing on their 
priorities, the museum ranked dead last, and I doubt that?s changed any in 
the years since. It?s not surprising, either, given the pressing county 
responsibilities of child protection, criminal justice, transportation and 
the like.
The operating arrangement was always a bit conflicted. The county owns the 
building and hires the staff, while the Historical Society owns the 
collection. So who?s in charge? Certainly not the county museum manager, 
because that position has been vacant for nearly two years now.
When the county shut the museum doors so abruptly Dec. 1, it was again a 
matter of priorities. The museum came out on the short end.
Peter Pulos, a finance manager in the Department of Parks and Land Use, which 
is administrative home to the museum, said the county by contract had to 
absorb the unionized employees whose jobs were being abolished at the museum. 
The Parks and Land Use Department had held some vacancies open since August 
and couldn?t bear to hold them open any longer, so the employees were moved 
from the museum.
Whenever I used the museum for research, I could count on one thing. I needed 
to only mention a subject and archivist Terry Biwer Becker would pile the 
table high with old records, pictures, books, maps, newspaper clippings - 
more than I could ever use.
A writer?s dream.
And it wasn?t just me. I watched individuals researching their family 
genealogy given skillful guidance by Becker, too. These days, she answers the 
phone, sorts the mail and serves as receptionist at the Parks and Land Use 
Department. The union contract guaranteed her pay and benefits, but it didn?t 
guarantee that her extensive knowledge of Waukesha County history wouldn?t be 
utterly wasted.
Baker said she?s confident that once the County Board approves the museum 
transfer, the transition will be a smooth one. She also thinks the transfer 
may spark greater citizen involvement. I hope she?s right.
The older I get, the more I appreciate history, and places like the county 
museum. Not just because I?ve seen more of history myself, though I suppose 
that?s part of it. Some of it, I think, is that the more complicated and 
faster-paced life gets, the more it needs context and roots.
It would be a shame if the museum weren?t around, long and strong, to provide 
that.
<SNIP>

________________________________________________________________
Naples Daily News 12/12/99
County building department works to keep up with records for construction boom

by Gina Edwards
<SNIP>
Problems with the county?s building department could mean hiring more workers 
to keep track of volumes of permits and other paperwork that now sometimes 
gets lost. 
Community Development and Environmental Services Administrator Vince Cautero 
asked the county library staff to troubleshoot record-keeping problems in 
October, after he recognized some problems. 
The report revealed that the county simply isn?t keeping up with inspection 
documenting of the area?s booming construction. 
Files can be taken from the county?s development permitting record room 
without notice. Even the labeling system is haphazard, the report shows. 
In November, the Naples Daily News reported the problems of two homeowners - 
both in a legal battle with a builder - who had difficulty locating 
permitting files and inspection reports when they requested their public 
records from the county. 
In the case of one homeowner, certain inspection reports were missing from 
his file. Those missing inspection reports caused Golden Gate Estates 
homeowner Michael Cronin to question whether all the proper county 
inspections were even done on his home. 
?There?s no stamp to show when things are submitted,? Cronin said. ?You could 
have walked in there, taken my whole file and walked off.? Cronin said the 
county?s poor management of records creates legal liability for the county. 
<SNIP>
<SNIP> 
?We?ve been having problems with record keeping for a while now,? Cautero 
said. ?It may require hiring more staff or changing procedures.? 
Cautero received the library staff report, which offered six recommendations, 
on Nov. 17. Hiring more staff is among the suggestions. So is a requirement 
that people sign out files when they request them. 
Cautero said he will consider what steps to take and ask county commissioners 
if he needs more funding to cure the problem. He said electronic imaging of 
records also is planned. 
?It would certainly allow us to handle record keeping more efficiently,? 
Cautero said. 
For example, the library staff report noted that development record drawers 
had minimal labeling, requiring hit or miss searching on the part of those 
trying to locate records. 
The report also suggested a new hybrid alphabetical and numbering system to 
keep records more orderly. County Commissioners said they haven?t had 
complaints from the public about record keeping. 
?I would imagine it?s difficult to keep the cataloging up to date, but it?s 
critical that we do that,? Commission Chairwoman Pam Mac?Kie said. ?I think 
having the library look into it was a smart response.? 
Commissioner Jim Carter also said keeping pace with growth when it comes to 
building inspection files is important. 
?Recognizing the tremendous amount of activity in that department, I suspect 
we?ll get a request for more people,? Carter said. ?You can only ask people 
to work so many hours and so many times.? 
<SNIP>

________________________________________________________________
The Post and Courier (South Carolina) 12/12/99
State FOIA tested

by Jim Davenport
Associated Press
<SNIP>
COLUMBIA - If you want to know what crimes are committed in your 
neighborhood, there?s a good chance that in South Carolina you can?t find out.
Want to check if someone?s in jail? In some places you?ll be told that?s not 
your business.
Want to know how your taxes are being spent? Some city or county governments 
will say you can?t see the records. And in some places they might even run a 
check on your license plate to see who you are.
The Legislature says you?re entitled to those records. Last year, lawmakers 
changed South Carolina?s Freedom of Information Act to make clear what must 
be immediately available so you, the taxpayer, can get a quicker and more 
complete look at how your police, your school districts and your government 
function.
All you should have to do is ask. The law doesn?t require identification, 
oaths or a need to say why you want it.
It isn?t working very well, based on the results of the first statewide check 
of compliance coordinated by The Associated Press and The South Carolina 
Press Association. In nearly one out of every three cases, when records were 
requested, they were denied or not produced within the law?s time limits.
In one case, law officers traced the license plate of a woman making the 
request in Union County. The sheriff said the woman?s request and questions 
had unnerved people.
The same thing happened in Cowpens when officials were asked for meeting 
minutes. ?We ran his tag number to find out who he was to start with,? 
clerk-treasurer Shirley Reynolds said.
And Anderson?s mayor said he wouldn?t provide the records because the person 
requesting them wasn?t from there.
?I am puzzled as to the relevance of our expenditures in Anderson to your 
daily existence. With no visible connection to our community, I find this 
exercise useless,? Mayor Richard Shirley wrote.
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
?That illustrates the absolute arrogance of some people who shouldn?t be in 
government,? said Jay Bender, a Columbia lawyer who has helped shape the 
state?s open records and meetings laws.
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
?The General Assembly finds that it is vital in a democratic society that 
public business be performed in an open and public manner,? says the law, 
first enacted in 1978 and updated several times. It encourages ?minimum cost 
or delay to the persons seeking access to public documents or meetings.?
State Attorney General Charlie Condon also wrote to public officials: ?When 
in doubt, disclose.?
Along with jail logs and crime reports, meeting minutes are supposed to be 
available immediately.
For other records, agencies are supposed to tell you within 15 working days 
whether the records will be released. You?re supposed to be able, for 
instance, to find out what your city manager has spent on cellular phone 
calls, what the terms of your school superintendent?s contract are, or, if 
your district is hiring a superintendent, who the finalists for the job are 
and their qualifications.
Those who asked for the records didn?t say they were reporters or journalism 
students. They went in just like you would if you wanted to see if your 
government was working properly.
They made 363 requests for jail logs, crime reports, superintendents? 
contracts, meeting minutes and city and county expense reports. In 63 cases, 
officials refused to release anything. In the others, the time limit came and 
went without any records or response.
?I?m just shocked? at the lack of compliance, said state Rep. James Klauber, 
the Greenwood Republican who has worked to expand and define those records 
clearly open to the public. He wants changes in the law that would give 
citizens the right to quick court decisions when access to records is denied.
Local governments ?do not want to disclose information. They want to keep in 
everything they possibly can,? Klauber said.
The head of the state sheriff?s association, however, protested that people 
normally don?t refuse to say who they are or work for.
?I question whether or not your audit was done in an honest fashion,? 
executive director Jeff Moore said. Of course law enforcement agencies get 
suspicious when someone walks in and aggressively demands information, he 
said.
But, said Bill Rogers, the press association?s executive director, ?This was 
an audit of public access and not of reporters? access.? And if police and 
sheriff?s deputies understand the importance of sometimes going undercover, 
he said, ?It is ironic that they don?t recognize that in this audit.? 
Reporters were told not to lie about who they worked for but were urged to 
avoid identifying themselves as journalists, Rogers said.
Violating South Carolina?s law is a misdemeanor with a fine up to $100 or as 
long as 30 days in jail for the first offense. Do it again and it?s as much 
as $200 or 60 days in jail and a third violation can mean a $300 fine and 90 
days.
South Carolina?s 70 percent compliance rate is similar to North Carolina?s, 
where a study was done this summer.
A survey in Arkansas netted public documents in two out of three instances. A 
state-run, by-the-letter-of-the-law audit in Connecticut, which has a 
separate agency just to deal with freedom of information issues, found full 
compliance only a fifth of the time.
South Carolina is the same state that has fought federal efforts to restrict 
access to driver?s license records, said Jane Kirtley, a University of 
Minnesota media law and ethics professor and former head of The Reporters 
Committee for Freedom of the Press.
The numbers reflect ?the basic distrust I think people in government often 
have of the public? and how guarded they are about records, she said.
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
The law says it is in the public interest to provide records free or at 
reasonable cost. Most records available were free. But Berkeley County, 
citing an hour of research time, charged $32.50 for one page of the county 
supervisor?s expense report.
In a third of the cases, public officials wanted to know who was making the 
request and why, even though the Freedom of Information Act doesn?t require 
that.
School superintendents called around to try to identify who was asking. Law 
officers aggressively questioned the testers.
When Susan Orr, a reporter for the Herald-Journal in Spartanburg, went to 
Union County for copies of a police property crime report and jail logs, the 
sheriff?s department refused to open the logs but insisted on finding out who 
she was.
?Was I a victim? Was I related to a victim? Was I an attorney? Was I in the 
media?? Orr said.
She answered no to those questions, explaining later that she felt flustered. 
She left after giving her name but otherwise refusing to identify herself. 
Sheriff Howard Wells said a law enforcement agency ran Orr?s tag, but he 
would not identify that agency.
Wells, who wasn?t there when Orr visited, said running the tag was 
appropriate. Orr ?had everybody on edge up here,? he said. His staff was 
?totally put in fear of this lady,? Wells said. ?The manner she presented 
herself is directly responsible for the result she obtained,? Wells said.
Authorities needed to know who she was if something happened, Wells said. 
?What if this person was stalking someone,? he said.
Orr didn?t get all the records she sought because she wasn?t specific enough 
about what she wanted, Wells said. She asked for the jail log, for instance, 
but in Union County it?s called the ?jail book,? he said.
Some of the requests went to the wrong people and for some records there is a 
chain of command that requests must follow, Moore said.
The open records law doesn?t say anything about chains of command, only that 
jail logs, crime reports and meeting minutes must be available if you ask for 
them in person and ?without ... being required to make a written request to 
inspect or copy the records.?
In Cowpens, Herald-Journal reporter Tom Langhorne was told by Reynolds, the 
clerk-treasurer, that he had to give his name, address and a reason for 
wanting the minutes. She said no one else had ever refused to do that and ?he 
hit me wrong that way, just with his sneaky ways.? Reynolds said she refused 
to release the information based on the advice of Municipal Judge Chester 
Brown.
?We are by nature suspicious of requests that aren?t normal requests,? said 
Howard Duvall, executive director of the South Carolina Municipal 
Association. ?The average Jane ... does not just walk in and ask for a police 
report.?
In the small Upstate town of Wellford, Mayor Sallie Peake said that had a 
policeman been nearby, she also would have run the license plate of the 
Herald-Journal reporter who asked for meeting minutes there. ?I don?t know 
who he was. How would I know what he had in his pocket?? she said. ?To me, he 
looked like a hit man or a Ku Klux Klansman.?
<SNIP>


________________________________________________________________
Spartanburg Herald-Journal 12/12/99
FOI request leads to confrontation

by Susan Orr
<SNIP>
UNION - It sounded easy enough - visit local government and law enforcement 
offices, request public documents that are supposed to be readily available 
and keep notes on what happened.
I didn?t realize it also would mean stress, confrontations and, without my 
knowing it, a police effort to track down who I work for.
My newspaper, the Herald-Journal, participated in a statewide project 
designed to measure how well public officials complied with South Carolina?s 
Freedom of Information Act.
My assignment was to visit Union County, where one stop was the county 
sheriff?s office. Because we wanted to check how any person would be treated, 
I didn?t say I was a reporter when I asked a very suspicious clerk if I could 
look through a stack of recent police reports.
But when I asked for a photocopy of a specific report, I was told I would 
have to speak with the sheriff.
I went off to check other offices and other records. One of my stops was the 
jail to check the list of people being held, what is known as the jail log.
The sheriff?s office also runs the jail, and the deputy there said he never 
could recall anyone asking to see the log. Go ask sheriff Howard Wells for 
permission, he said.
When I returned to Wells? office, now seeking not only the crime report but a 
look at the jail log, I was told to wait in the hall.
A few minutes later, a burly deputy came out and grilled me about who I was 
and why I wanted the information.
To each of these rapid-fire questions, I blurted ?no.? Immediately afterward, 
I realized I shouldn?t have denied being a reporter, but at that point I was 
so flustered I just wanted to get out of there.
The upshot was this: Wells wasn?t in, and I wasn?t getting the report or a 
look at the log.
It was just a brief confrontation - no more than a couple minutes - but it 
left me annoyed and uneasy, so uneasy that, as I drove home, I kept looking 
in the rearview mirror, expecting see a deputy on my tail.
As it turns out, this wasn?t so far from the truth.
The next day, I learned that law enforcement officials had run my automobile 
license plate through the computer, then called the Spartanburg police to ask 
if officers there knew who I was.
My editor told me about it when I got to work.
Weeks later, when a co-worker was introducing a new reporter to local 
authorities in Union, she also was asked why I had been nosing around.
All this because I asked to look at public records that the law says are 
supposed to be immediately available to anyone and for a copy of one of them.
To be fair, at several other local municipal offices I was treated 
courteously by clerks who were happy to accommodate my requests.
But to this day, when I think of the Union County Sheriff?s Office, that 
unhappy incident sticks in my mind.
<SNIP>

_________________________________________________________________
Associated Press 12/12/99
Government secrecy has deep roots

by Jim Davenport
<SNIP>
COLUMBIA - That South Carolina?s open records and open meetings law often is 
ignored or flouted doesn?t surprise law professor Eldon Wedlock, who sees the 
roots in a decades-old culture of government secrecy.
He recalls that while doing research at the secretary of state?s office 
before the 1978 law passed, ?It was basically, ?What is your security 
clearance? Why do you need to know that?? ?
?It is troubling that there is still this sort of Cold War attitude to 
keeping public records from the bona fide public,? the University of South 
Carolina professor said after learning of the numerous violations in a 
statewide test of the Freedom of Information Act.
The journalists and journalism students who asked for public records around 
the state often found people citing old versions of the law, unaware of what 
the law required or unsure of how to deal with routine records requests.
Some public officials simply said no, the records would not be released. That 
happened almost 44 percent of the time for crime reports, almost 35 percent 
of the time for jail logs and less frequently for meeting minutes, county and 
city expense reports and school superintendents? contracts.
The law has been stiffened over the years. Now it has fines and jail terms 
starting at $100 or 30 days in jail for a willful violation and going up to 
$300 and 90 days in jail for three-time offenders.
But state Rep. James Klauber, who has championed some of the recent changes, 
says it needs even more teeth. The Greenwood Republican says he plans 
legislation to put open records cases before judges within 48 hours.
Some of the issues stem from a sense among government officials that ?you get 
mischief if people know what?s going on,? Wedlock said.
But that knowledge is vital in a democracy, said Tom Tisdale, a Charleston 
lawyer who helped fight to open up records that showed financial abuses by 
former University of South Carolina President James Holderman.
?If we expect to operate in a civilized society ... the only way to do it is 
for people to know how government is being operated and how the laws are 
being administered,? Tisdale said.
Educating public officials about the law has always been a problem, said Bill 
Rogers, executive director of the South Carolina Press Association.
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
Some states have considered or put in place freedom of information advocates 
to referee disputes, said Jane Kirtley, a University of Minnesota media law 
and ethics professor and an open records experts.
Enforcement, however, ?has to come from the top down,? Kirtley said. ?The 
governor and the attorney general of the state have got to say it is a 
priority.?
And they, not private citizens, should be the ones taking lawbreakers to 
court, she said. ?I don?t think we should be expecting citizens to litigate 
to secure rights guaranteed them by law,? Kirtley said.
<SNIP>



PETER A. KURILECZ CRM, CA
PAKURILECZ@AOL.COM

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