Oops.. Another Public Records Issue

As you know, I have been digging into the records that county administrator Steve Howard gave to me. These were call logs from his personal device.

In case you missed it, public records laws require the release of most everything related to government. This includes call logs for calls placed regarding government business... even if those calls were made on personal devices.

Howard had to provide these to me because I made a records request of them for something I am working on.

As I said when I got them, the issue Howard has here is that he is calling senior staff on their personal cell phones and not their county devices. That is not illegal or anything, but this puts county employees under pressure to maintain these calls and provide them upon request or risk violating public records laws.

He made calls to the personal cell phones of the following individuals on staff: Eric Landon (Growth Management Director), Mariselle Singleton (Assistant County Administrator), Eric Head (Community Services Director), Jamie Ang (Communications Manager), Carlton Hall (Public Works Director).

I have put in a records requests to these individuals, due to Howard's calls showing me that they use their personal devices. To date, I have only received the call logs from Eric Landon and Denise Lyn (County Attorney). No one else has provided them and most everyone else has not responded to my request, also a requirement of the law.

Jamie Ang did respond that she had no records. I approached her after a BOCC meeting and asked about them and stated that I had calls from Howard indicating she had calls on her personal device, but she stated she was not required to disclose them due to them not being on her phone... or something like that.

Singleton, Head, and Hall have not even responded... nor have they provided me the requested records. Doh!

But again, none of this would be required of them had Howard not made the calls to their personal devices to begin with. He has put them in a bad spot.

But a bigger issue is emerging.

Doing a bit more diving into the records, I also found that Howard has disclosed exempt information.

You see, some employees are protected from disclosing personal information about them.... including cell phone numbers. This is due to state law on public records exemption.

The law contains a list of people who are exempt from disclosure of these records, which include their personal phone numbers. People like current or former sworn law enforcement officers, current and former certified firefighters, current and former judges, current and former county attorneys/judges/etc, current and former HR directors and staff, current and former clerk of courts... and so on. It covers most of their spouses and families as well.

The idea behind the law is to protect these people from disclosure of their personal information so that bad actors or people who are upset with an action they made cannot cause them harm or harass them... things like that.

Even if the information is available by Googling a name or what have you, the county/employer is not allowed to disclose that information. It is supposed to redact it when it fulfills a records request if that information is in there.

Within Howard's call logs are the following people's personal phone numbers:

• Former Sheriff Jeff Dawsy
• County Attorney Denise Lyn
• Fire Chief Craig Stevens
• State Representative JJ Grow
• Property Appraiser Craig Dalton
• Assistant County Administrator Mariselle Singleton (not sure why she is exempt, but I used her phone number to find her address and found that it is not listed on the property appraiser's website, so she is exempt from disclosure for some reason)

There may be others I missed, but you get the idea. All of them are protected.

It appears that he may have violated public records laws by disclosing the personal cell phone numbers of those individuals and not redacting them.

Add this to the leak of the personal information of county employees, two weeks ago today, it appears that there are issues in the county when it comes to public records. Howard is the one that is in charge of all of it. This all comes down to him. He needs to implement better systems and procedures. He needs to train staff on public records laws. None of this should be happening.

Or maybe he needs to go and we get someone capable of doing this.

He may blame IT or the records manager at the time, Mike Bridges (he is on paid admin leave for termination hearings), but in this case, he is the custodian of his call logs, NOT the county. It is his responsibility to make sure he follows public records laws and disclosures and redacts exempt information. He did not do that.

I have said before there is a Steve Howard issue in this county and this further shows that. How many mistakes will the commissioners allow Howard to make before they have had enough?

Oh wait, that would require them to do an annual review. He does not get those because commissioners refuse to hold his feet to the fire. We are coming up on his 3rd anniversary in November and he has never had an annual review.

Mind boggling.