A poignant editorial has appeared in the Jacksonville Times-Union. The editorial was written in response to a recent public records lawsuit filed by the Times-Union against the City of Jacksonville. The Times-Union filed suit after Mayor Alvin Brown’s office unlawfully delayed the production of public records.
At taxpayer expense, Chief Deputy General Counsel Howard Maltz defended the Mayor’s misconduct. Perhaps employing the adage that “an once of prevention is worth a pound of cure” would be a better use of the taxpayer’s money. Maybe if Mr. Maltz spent more time giving sound legal advice on the front end instead of defending the bad acts of errant public officials, the citizens of Jacksonville would have more money for minor things like education and public safety. Mr. Maltz appears to understand Florida’s Public Records Act, so that begs the question, is he giving sound advice and being ignored?
While the City of Jacksonville never admitted liability it did agree to pay $15,000 in taxpayers funds to the Times-Union for the newspaper’s legal fees. Section 119.12 of the Florida Statutes provides for reasonable attorney’s fees and expenses to be recovered when a requester takes legal action to enforce his or her rights under Florida’s Public Records Act.
It’s all about OPM, (Other People’s Money), and the arrogance of power. Until the citizens of Florida demand that public officials are held individually responsible for this kind of nonsense, it will continue. After all, we’re picking up the tab for their misconduct.
Mr. Chandler, I believe what you are doing is absolutely vital to open government and keeping government officials honest (which is perhaps a contradiction of terms). I agree that a good next step in the Public Records Law would be to hold government employees and contractors personally liable for unlawful activity.
I have a question — Instead of providing revenue to attorneys have you investigated suing in small claims court to recover your expenses for time, travel and out of pocket costs related to obtaining public records, perhaps as a first step before having to involve the lawyers?
I would like to volunteer to assist you in any capacity needed as I truly believe what you are doing here is an incredible thing.
You should seek out a royalty contract for movie rights to your story or first write a book and then sell the movie rights to it, because you sir are a true American Patriot.
Yours in Liberty.