No Records, No Signed Affidavits, No more Mediation
Normally, getting a GRAMA request (freedom of information) usually takes 10 days or less.
But in Cedar Hills, when asking for the Mayor and other city official’s email records, things suddenly get very, very complicated.
In 2012, an GRAMA request for email records took over 210 days, but victory was awarded by the Utah State Records Committee when it ORDERED to the City of Cedar Hills to gather the requested email of city business emails from all email accounts, personal, city or from wherever. (“APPEAL GRANTED” see case #12-11 “UPHELD” http://archives.utah.gov/src/srcappeals-2010-2012.html )
Unfortunately, many of the city business email records were kept on personal email accounts and allow to be destroyed by three out-going Council members Jim Perry, Marisa Wright and Ken Kirk. We’ll probably never know what was in those email, reminding us of the current Lois Lerner / IRS scandal of mysteriously “destroyed” emails.
Additionally, we could never understand how the Mayor Gygi and Council could justify spending $30,000 in legal fees, in order to collect $766 in fees from the GRAMA requestors?
More recently, the delays got worse. The original GRAMA request that began October 1, 2013, has now taken 330 days and still counting, with several overlapping GRAMA requests, negotiations and mediations, requesting the same email and text, with no records yet provided. It takes a lot of expensive attorney fees to withhold public records.
The original GRAMA request (or Freedom of Information) that began October 1, 2013, has now taken 330 days and still counting, with no records from our GRAMA Request yet provided. And the clock continues to tick.
Cedar Hills Citizens for Responsible Government (CHCRG) and 26 member-signers, along with the Daily Herald, and radio talk show hosts Tim Alders and Sam Bushman, signed similar GRAMA requests for these same public business email and text records. Still no results.
Mayor Gygi, city officials and the city attorney, have been caught in numerous falsehoods during the mediation process with the Utah State Records Ombudsmen Rosemary Cundiff, when their questionable legal strategies were exposed. According to emails it appears that the City has now indirectly rejected the mediation process, however we don’t have that in writing from the City Manager, who is responsible for doing so.
As a compromise, the City asked our requests to be narrowed, in exchange for their signed Affidavits under penalty of perjury, that would PROVES they were telling the truth about their email and text records. They’ve since refused to sign mutually agreeable under penalty of perjury Affidavits.
No Records, No Signed Affidavits, No more Mediation?
The reason honesty is so important is if city officials are misleading in small things, what about larger issues?
Could this all be part of a larger cover-up in Cedar Hills government?
See the Daily Herald article below…
State records office denies Cedar Hills group’s records request
August 24, 2014 6:37 pm • Cathy Allred Daily Herald
CEDAR HILLS – The Utah State Archives records officer has refused a records request for communication records — emails and texts — between Cedar Hills city officials and the State Government Records ombudsman, Rosemary Cundiff.
For complete article see…