The almost $14,000 award against Jefferson County is enough to draw attention to the importance of the state Freedom of Information Act.
The act, when it’s followed, is the legal requirement that government entities be transparent, that word that gets bandied about a lot but in many instances gets ignored.
In this case, a woman, Kimberly Dale, an attorney from Paragould, asked all of the justices of the peace and the county judge for information regarding the county’s finances. She appears to have a proprietary interest in the information, given that she is representing Sheriff Lafayette Woods Jr., who is suing the Quorum Court and the judge for what the sheriff sees as an unfair way of dealing with his office’s budget.
Dale did not get very far, or at least that was the case she made in front of Ben Story, a special judge appointed to hear the case. She said she went to each one of the justices of the peace and also to County Judge Gerald Robinson and asked for paperwork and related documents regarding the county’s financial picture.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
She made the claim that no one responded adequately to her request — except Justice of the Peace Conley Byrd, who was excluded from the lawsuit because he actually cooperated.
The JPs testified that they may have had the paperwork at one time but had destroyed it or never had had the information. And several said they had been told not to bother with Dale’s request because the county’s legal representative would handle matters. In other instances, Dale was told to ask the county clerk for what she was looking for because that is the office where such paperwork is kept.
Even from a distant vantage point, it’s easy to picture how her interaction with the county resembled an exercise in “Who’s On First?”
“Sorry, ma’am, the attorney is out right now and will have to call you back (har har).”
Arkansas had a pretty stiff Freedom of Information law. Had, because every time the legislature meets, it seems, they chip away at it. But it’s still clear on certain matters, and public documents are still public, thankfully. And when someone asks for them, public officials are supposed to hop to it and make the information available. That’s the way Judge Story saw things, anyway.
To that end, the judge was unsympathetic to the county’s arguments against Dale’s allegations, and now he has awarded her right at $14,000 for legal fees and other costs. For the county’s part, officials apparently know when they’ve been beat, given that they did not appeal for fear of losing more money
In today’s world, it seems pretty rare for a public entity to get its hand slapped with a fine for slipping around the FOIA. Kudos to Judge Story for leaving a mark in the county’s checkbook for recognizing that Dale should have been treated better.
Perhaps other public institutions will sit up and take notice of Story’s ruling and respond more efficiently to requests for public documents since, you know, the public has a legal right to see them.