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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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