Thursday, July 01, 2010

Hoosier State Press Ass'n General Counsel Pans Ordinance Limiting Access to Some Public Records

READ READ READ -The Dearborn County Register FRONT PAGE article - and also editorial page column by Denise Freitag Burdette regarding limiting access to public records that are considered "gray areas" in the state law on Access to Public Records. Commissioners took it off the July 6th agenda after questioned about it.

The actual draft ordinance can be found at the Register's website or by clicking below:

http://thedcregister.com/PublicRecordsOrdinance.pdf

5 comments:

? said...

The implications are what?

cc said...

"the following records shall be excepted from public disclosure under Indiana Code 5-14-3-3 and may not be disclosed by the County of Dearborn, its Commissioners, its Council members, its Auditor, Treasurer, Assessor, Recorder, or any other officers or employees:"

They are removing the ability for teh office holder to decide what is confidential or not- saying that ALL gray area items are OUT of public view.
Read the newspaper and editorial- it explains with examples.

Chester said...

After reading the ordinance it seemed pretty clear to me that they enumerated the things that were exempt. I didn't see any weasel wording that that could be stretched to cover up things the public would need to know to ensure that there isn't any corrupt or abusive uses of office. All of the enumerated items seemed reasonable to me. Did I miss something?

reader said...

check the idea that what was left to the discretion of the officeholder to disclose- in the gray area sections- now says that in our county it is no longer up to their discretion. They SHALL BE EXCEPTED FROM PUBLIC DISCLOSURE.
It is MORE restrictive than the state law.

Dan Brewington said...

Why does the county feel the need to take extra precautions to protect public records from the public? Maybe Jeff Hughes is mad because Christina's fence around her pool is up to code.(Re: previous blog post) Public officials who take extra measures to conceal public records are probably doing something wrong. Hughes is probably trying to protect Prosecutor Aaron Negangard and his corrupted Special Crimes Unit. For those of you who are reading this that know Aaron Negangard and/or James Humphrey, please tell them that I am aware that they use their positions to illegally retaliate and punish people who oppose them. Please tell them that they know where I live so they can sue me or arrest me if they think that I have done anything wrong. Unfortunately they won't because they are cowards. If they do take action against me, I will be able to obtain all of the information necessary to demonstrate the extent of their illegal conduct. It appears that the tyrants are beginning to fear the peasants.