HOUSEKEEPING IN GEORGIA FOI LAW

The 2005 events blunting DeKalb County’s years of trying to shield expansion of Peachtree-DeKalb Airport loom large in Georgia open government. They are the ruling by Judge Robert J. Castellani of DeKalb Superior Court in Feltus v. DeKalb County, and the opinion by Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker that agencies can’t go fishing to the federal government for secrecy -- they can’t contract with a U.S. agency to establish for them an exception to the Georgia Open Records Act. State Sen. David Adelman, the minority whip, is the legislator who requested Baker’s historic opinion. These actions opening up Georgia government are only going to become more important as the years go by, in this column’s view.

House Bill 874 passed the House 151-0 on March 13 and cleared the Senate Committee on State and Local Government Operations March 22. It would amend the vague language in O.C.G.A. 50-18-72(A)(1) stating that "public disclosure shall not be required for records that are specifically required by the federal government." The co-sponsors of this bill want that statute to instead say, "required by federal statute or regulation."

It’s not the best use of Georgia taxpayer dollars to write into the state code a provision saying that whatever’s in a federal statute or regulation is lawful in Georgia. We do concede it’s better than, say, debating whether to make red clay the state’s official soil. However, Georgia F.O.I. Confidential welcomes language in Title 50 that is unequivocal.

THE CORRUPT CAMPBELL YEARS

Bill Campbell, former mayor of Atlanta, is awaiting sentencing for tax evasion at this writing. He was not convicted of racketeering. The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia "charged and convicted 11 other city officials and contractors, including the chief operating officer, deputy COO and chief administrative officer," David E. Nahmias wrote in his op-ed article in the Journal-Constitution March 21.

"While Campbell was mayor, we encountered remarkable resistance from the city attorney’s office on requests for city documents," Nahmias wrote.

Journalists and citizens can only echo that view. Any Open Records request to the city in those years routinely was answered with a form letter stating that it had been routed to the appropriate department, That department had the responsibility of commenting on it and returning it to the city attorney’s office. The net result was a complete shutdown, an absence of any semblance of compliance with Georgia sunshine law.

If there was one document about which the city was most intractable, one record hardest to reel in, it was the mayor’s appointment calendar. According to newspaper accounts of trial testimony, the mayor had secret weekend romantic getaways, including to Paris. If those calendars ever had become public knowledge, the trips could have made headlines to be read by the citizens of Atlanta.

The Campbell administration has set a sordid standard for non-disclosure. As details of Campbell’s mayoralty eke out, it would seem that in the future, any Georgia official who denies release of his appointment calendar does so at his peril.

GOV. PERDUE AND OPEN GOVERNMENT

Gov. Sonny Perdue "met with a group of government leaders to find ways to make state government more efficient," and those meetings "were generally held away from the media and the public," James Salzer reported in the Journal-Constitution March 13. In another action related to open government or the lack of it, Perdue signed the law making a secret of donors to college foundations.

Following is more research on the governor’s record on open government, based on research by this writer for the Georgia First Amendment Foundation:

On the plus side, Gov. Perdue signed a sunshine-in-government proclamation during Sunshine Week in 2005.

While a legislator, Sonny Perdue voted ‘yes’ on HB 1549 of 1998, providing for mediation by the Georgia attorney general of open-government disputes, according to Senate Journal 1998, Vol., 1, page 1000.

On the minus side, the Perdue administration never has sent to the floor an FOI bill.

He hasn’t connected ethics reform with its close cousin, disclosure. A place in the Georgia law where they are linked is the body of Georgia Supreme Court opinions by Charles L. Weltner.

As a veterinarian, Perdue benefits from O.C.G.A. 50-18-72(a)(2), which gives vets the same secrecy of their records that is enjoyed by doctors as an invasion of privacy. This makes Georgia state secrets of the records of the care of cats and dogs. It became law before Purdue entered the legislature.

While a legislator, Sonny Perdue voted ‘yes’ on HB 124 of 1993, making it illegal for a Georgia citizen to criticize a perishable food product, Georgia’s notorious "Veggie Libel" statute, according to Georgia Senate Journal 1993, Vol., 1, page 952. In effect, this suspends free speech in Georgia when you are talking about a fruit or a vegetable.

Also while in the Assembly, Perdue missed an opportunity to be an eyewitness to open-government history. He had an excused absence on the first day of the 1999 session. Gov. Barnes sent to the floor, and held up all legislation until passed, his bills requiring open-meetings affidavits to justify executive sessions and hardened three-day response to open records, HB 278 and 279, according to Georgia Senate Journal 1999, Vol. 1, pages 435, 489 and 492.

 CLAYTON SHERIFF BARS NEWS-DAILY

A sheriff angry about an article last year in The Clayton News Daily dismissed reporters from the paper from a news conference in early March , while allowing other reporters to stay.

Earlier in the week, Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill also ordered a News Daily photographer out of a news conference about a state Supreme Court ruling that Hill could not fire his employees without cause, as he did when he first entered office in January 2005, the paper reported.

Hill's dispute with the paper started in August when the paper ran an article about him removing plaques in the county courthouse. Since then, Hill has declined to answer News Daily reporters' questions or return their calls.

"Generally speaking, a public official cannot retaliate against a newspaper or TV station based on editorial content if the retaliation essentially cuts off the newspaper or station from access to news that the public official gives to other media," said David Hudson, general counsel of the Georgia Press Association.

The newspaper has sent a letter of protest to the sheriff, but he continues to discriminate against them, Hudson said. He does not know if the paper plans to take legal action.

News Daily Publisher Bonnie Pratt declined comment beyond what the paper published March 10. Source for this item only: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.