July 25, 2017

Did you know that, in Milton, an e-mail to a government official’s private e-mail account about a matter outside that government official’s responsibilities and sent to the official in his capacity as a private citizen constitutes a government record that is then subject to open records laws?  If not, then read on . . .

Consider the following scenario.  You have a friend with whom you communicate by e-mail (or text).  That friend serves on one of the City’s volunteer committees.  You may not even know about your friend’s government service.  One day, you send that friend a political e-mail about some City government issue that has nothing to do with the committee on which your friend serves.  And that e-mail includes other news and information you would rather the world not know about.  Did you know that email (or text) is a government record discoverable through an Open Records Request (ORR)?  Well, according to Milton’s City Attorney, such communications are property of the Milton City government and can be made public subject to the redacting of certain personal information (like your personal cellphone number).

How do we know this?  Because the City has already published such communications as part of a massive ORR submitted by Council Member Karen Thurman.  More importantly, the City Attorney has stated that the law supports his views on privacy; we strongly disagree.  This Thurman ORR encompasses e-mail and text communications of around 40 city government officials over a two-year period. This ORR targets members of five committees, who all use private e-mails for their City business.  And these members may be your friends, your business colleagues, or mere acquaintances.  And you might not even know they serve on a Milton City government committee.  However, if you send them a communication about anything that can be construed as “city business,” your communication is a public record, including the parts that do not relate to City business whatsoever.  In Milton, it has now become necessary for citizens to vet their friends, neighbors, colleagues, and acquaintances to determine whether they serve on a volunteer government committee.  And perhaps, volunteers on citizen committees need to include disclaimers on their private e-mails:

“Warning!  I serve on a Milton citizen volunteer committee.  Any communications sent to or from me that can be construed as City of Milton business are considered public records discoverable through an Open Records Request.”

Of course, this de facto policy reeks of Big Brother.  Furthermore, we believe it is patently unconstitutional–a violation of citizens’ privacy.  In Griswold vs. Connecticut, the United States Supreme Court established a citizen’s right to privacy.  In the wake of Griswold, a whole body of case law further defines this constitutional right to privacy.  We wonder how far the City Attorney might extend its definition of “government official.”  For example, if you participate in Milton’s Adopt-A-Road program, are your e-mails now subject to scrutiny by the government if they contain information that might be construed as “government business?”  What nowadays is not government business?

Of course, we believe one purpose of these broad and vague ORRs is to coerce and to intimidate citizens to not exercise their First Amendment political rights:  speech, assembly, and petition.  Some Council Members are increasingly politically vulnerable because more and more citizens in Milton are objecting to their wrongdoing and misbehavior.  Some politicians are looking for ways to silence influential citizens, who (armed with the truth about their wrongdoing and misbehavior) are organizing citizens through petitions and other means.  Unfortunately, the City Attorney seems to be aiding and abetting the efforts of Council Members to abridge citizens’ political rights.  The City Attorney has adopted an unjustifiably broad (and we believe, unconstitutional) definition of a public record that facilitates (and perhaps even incents) politically-motivated fishing expeditions that waste taxpayer money.

So how should the City Attorney process an ORR that seeks to gather all communications relating to “city business” from citizens serving on volunteer committees?  First, the City should provide guidance to ORR recipients about how to respond to the ORR.  In this situation, none was provided; ORR recipients were just forwarded the ORR without guidance.  Specifically, the City Attorney should define “city business” for ORR recipients.  And we believe this definition of “city business” should be narrow—that is, limited to matters before the committee on which a citizen is serving.  Furthermore, communications that fit this definition should be cleansed of information not relevant to the matter before the committee.

We believe a longer-term and better solution to this issue of transparency vs. privacy would be 1) to issue City e-mail accounts to all committee members and 2) to require that City email be used for all City Business conducted by that committee.  This is a simple and clean solution.  All city-issued e-mail accounts would then be subject to public examination and there would be no need to request private or company e-mails.  This would not only solve the privacy problem, but it would eliminate any burden on volunteers to make judgments about e-mail and to provide e-mails.  The City would simply retrieve committee members’ emails from the City server.

(Note:  The City does not notify a citizen who is the subject of an ORR that he/she is the subject of an ORR.  The City does inform City Council Members.  This needs to change.  If you are the subject of an ORR, then you have a right to know that.  This is an issue of good governance and just plain common courtesy.)

********************************************************************************

Update on processing of Ms. Thurman’s ginormous ORR. 

Normally, a response to an ORR is required within 3 days.  However, because of the breadth of Ms. Thurman’s ORR, the City had to extend the response period.  Processing is likely going to cost the City a lot of money, because of the time and resources involved.  Due to its sensitivity, Ms. Thurman’s ORR is being processed by the City Attorney, who contracts to the City.  A staff attorney is processing Ms. Thurman’s ORR, so taxpayers will be paying lawyer, not clerk, rates.  Ms. Thurman will be charged for some of the costs of the ORR.  However, because of how fees are computed for processing ORRs, taxpayers will likely be subsidizing a good portion this ORR’s costs.  So you will be paying for a politician’s attempts to dig up political dirt.  And we are sure that these efforts, like a similar ginormous ORR submitted by Ms. Thurman in 2008, will come to nought.  This ORR will be a huge waste of money for taxpayers.

We will be submitting our own ORR to determine what resources were expended on this ORR and the cost to Ms. Thurman and to taxpayers.  We will keep you updated.

Lastly, citizens, please know that we will continue to report on the affairs of our City government at this website.  Our focus is on policy and good governance.  You have a right to know what is going on with your local government.  We appreciate the trust and confidence you have placed in us.  Even if we have to hire lawyers to protect our free speech rights, we will continue to advocate for clean, competent, courageous, and citizen-centric government.

July 19, 2017

Author:  Tim Becker

Council Member Karen Thurman has submitted a ginormous Open Records Request (ORR).  Why ginormous?  Because it sweeps up the email and text messages from several dozen—perhaps as many as 42—city government officials for a two-year period.  These are mostly citizen volunteers to City committees and commissions, who give freely of their time to serve the City.  And most have no connection whatsoever to the person being member targeted by Ms. Thurman, which is me.  Georgia’s Open Records Act requires that government entities turn around ORRs in 3 business days.  Each and every one of these individuals has had to divert attention from their work, from their families, and from other important tasks to comply with Ms. Thurman’s request.  Because of its sensitivity, this ORR is being handled by the City Attorney.  Accordingly, the ORR will be expensive to process.  It is important to note that processing an ORR requires the reading of each e-mail 1) to ensure it is pertinent to the request and 2) to redact certain types of personal information (e.g., private e-mail addresses).

(Note:  The City does not notify a citizen that is the subject of an ORR that he/she is the subject of an ORR.  The City does inform City Council Members.  This needs to change.  If you are the subject of an ORR, then you have a right to know that.  This is an issue of good governance.)

Let us be crystal clear.  Ms. Thurman has a right to all communications of any government official about city business relating to the scope of responsibilities of that official.  Transparency is a cornerstone of good governance.   And I have submitted a number of ORRs, some of which included e-mails to and from Ms. Thurman.  However, there are several important differences between my ORRs and Ms. Thurman’s ORR:

• My ORRs have always been focused on a specific policy issue (e.g., changing of district boundaries). Thurman’s request has no specified purpose.  Furthermore, Ms. Thurman’s ORR is focused on a person, not a policy issue.
• My ORRs have only focused on specific individuals with a connection to the policy issue being investigated. Thurman’s search includes people with absolutely no connection to me (but whom will nevertheless have to waste time searching their e-mails.)
• My ORRs have specified search criteria to narrow the search to minimize the use of City resources and delve only into pertinent areas of concern.
• My ORRs have covered time periods pertinent to the issue being investigated.

So these differences beg the question of Ms. Thurman’s motives for submitting such a request.  Why has Ms. Thurman submitted such a broad and vague request?  I believe there are a number of reasons.  The most obvious reason is that Ms. Thurman is clearly on a fishing expedition.  She is looking to dig up whatever dirt she can on whoever she can.  She has cast a wide dragnet to dredge up morsels of information that she can exploit to deflect attention from the Redistricting Scandal.  And I suppose that given her dire political situation, this vast ORR is understandable.  However, there is more to this ORR than just deflection.

Ms. Thurman’s ORR is meant to bully others into not exercising their political rights.  This is ironic given that Ms. Thurman recently gave a speech casting herself as the victim of bullying by citizens, which is really as oxymoron, given that individual citizens have such little power compared to Council Members.  However, this is an old political tactic:  Cast yourself as the victim of whatever tactic you plan to employ against your opponents.

Quite simply, with this ORR, Ms. Thurman is trying to face down citizens (that disagree with her).  Using various tactics, Council Members Thurman and Lusk have been trying to silence citizen-critics for months—thankfully, without success.  Both have claimed citizen-critics are violating or abusing free speech rights . . . a chilling and anti-Constitutional assertion.  Furthermore, Ms. Thurman is sending a message to others:  Be careful or I will use an ORR to beat you into submission.  This sort of bullying from Council Members is one reason why citizens disengage from politics and goverment

In submitting such a broad ORR, Ms. Thurman is also trying to isolate certain citizens.  The ORR is meant to confer pariah status on certain citizens.  The message to citizen committee volunteers is that they should exercise caution in associating with certain citizens.

However, I am confident that Ms. Thurman’s attempts to bully and isolate citizens with ginormous ORRs will backfire—similar to the failure of other tactics she has recently employed.  (See speeches at City Council on July 10^th and July 17^th).  Ironically, Ms. Thurman’s attempts to bully citizens into submission or isolate them have only isolated Ms. Thurman.  At Monday’s City Council meeting, citizens showed up en masse to question Ms. Thurman; no Thurman supporters showed up.  Ms. Thurman’s fellow Council Members were clearly disturbed by her recent speech, as evidenced by their expressions and other body language.

And Ms. Thurman’s bullying does not stop with citizens.  Thurman also has the Milton Herald in her crosshairs.  At Monday night’s City Council meeting, Ms. Thurman blasted the Milton Herald, claiming the Milton Herald is “making news rather than reporting factual news” and becoming a “tabloid.”  She implied that the City needs to severe its relationship with the paper because of its reporting of the redistricting scandal.  We find her discussion of the city’s contractual relationship with a vendor in such informal and negative manner to be borderline unethical.  The city has a formal process for securing and evaluating relationships with vendors.  It was highly inappropriate for Ms. Thurman to broach the City’s relationship with the newspaper in the context of the redistricting discussion.  More importantly, it seems Ms. Thurman wants to infringe upon another First Amendment right:  Freedom of the Press.  She has previously made comments showing ignorance of, or disdain for, 3 other First Amendment freedoms:  speech, assembly, and right to petition.

Lastly, this is not Ms. Thurman’s first ginormous ORR.  Back in the early days of the city, she submitted an ORR requesting all communications among City Council members, for which she paid $2100.  As you can read below, that money would have been better used to make a charitable contribution.  Perhaps to an anti-bullying organization or a good governance advocacy group.  Here is the link the AJC article on Ms. Thurman’s 2008 ORR, which we have also pasted below:

AJC Article: Member Opens Records On Milton City Council

*****************************************************************************

Atlanta Journal-Constitution:  Member Opens Records On Milton City Council

By Doug Nurse  http://www.ajc.com/

It was one of the largest open records request ever received by the city clerk of Milton. Karen Thurman recently asked for, and received, months of e-mails involving City Council members. She said she simply wants to know what is going on in the city.

What makes this request so extraordinary? Thurman is a member of the City Council.

Saying she felt out of the loop, Thurman filed an open records request with the city for e-mails among city senior staff and other council members going back to Jan. 1.”I know that this will be a significant number of e-mails but feel it is necessary for me to get a handle on what is happening within the city,” she wrote in a Feb. 26 e-mail to the city clerk.

On March 7, the city provided her with 6,000 pages of e-mails on a computer disc, which she read over the next two days.She said her review confirmed instances where she and Councilman Bill Lusk had been left out of the loop by other council members. For example, she said she was caught flatfooted by the City Council’s decision to move the meeting date from Thursdays to Mondays, which is a bad time for her. She said e-mails indicate that other council members were aware of the proposal.

Thurman said none of the issues where she was omitted was major, but she finds it disturbing, nonetheless.”It’s political,” she said.Last year, Thurman and Lusk were often part of a bloc of four votes, but two of their allies were defeated in the fall election. Since the city was founded Dec. 1, 2006, it had been riven with political dissension, prompting the council last year to call an organizational psychologist to help them deal with conflict.

Amy Henderson, spokeswoman for the Georgia Municipal Association, said Thurman’s open records request was an unusual move.“It’s rare for anybody to ask for city council e-mails, but it’s even more uncommon when it’s coming from a member of the City Council,” Henderson said.

Thurman said the freedom of information act request was justified. She said that, sometimes, threads of discussions from City Manager Chris Lagerbloom and Mayor Joe Lockwood would be discussed online among council members — minus Thurman and Lusk. She said Lagerbloom and Lockwood probably weren’t even aware it was going on.“She gets the same e-mails that everyone else gets, at least from me,” Lockwood said. “Everything that has to do with the decisions of the city, I send to everyone. Everyone is in the loop.”

Lagerbloom said Thurman is being charged for the research but said doesn’t know how much it will cost.  Lusk said it’s disconcerting to be excluded from discussions. Thurman shared some of the e-mails with him.”If you’re part of a team and it’s time to go into a huddle and everyone gets asked except for two players, I don’t know how you win, how to play when you’ve been marginalized,” Lusk said. “It’s frustrating.”

Lusk said he might have voted differently on some things if had had the same information as everyone else, but he said he couldn’t name any specifics off the top of his head.”We’re supposed to come together here since the city has been taken back,” Lusk said, referring to campaign slogans last fall that said it was time to take back Milton.