• About Us
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
Monday, January 25, 2021
32 °f
Platte
29 ° Wed
28 ° Thu
37 ° Fri
43 ° Sat
The Platte County Landmark Newspaper
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
No Result
View All Result
The Platte County Landmark Newspaper
No Result
View All Result

Scope of sunshine complaint expands

Debbie Coleman-Topi by Debbie Coleman-Topi
April 17, 2019
in Parkville
3
SHARES
84
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare via Email

Attorneys for the head of a citizens group protesting the city of Parkville’s handling of a massive development have sent an additional complaint letter to the Missouri Attorney General, protesting what they deem as the city’s illegal response to some requests for public records through the state’s Sunshine Law.

The four-page letter objects to several aspects of the city’s management of Sunshine requests submitted by Jason Maki, head of an organization known as Citizens for a Better Parkville, accusing city officials of “manipulating its release of records to thwart informed public involvement in the political process and charging excessive fees for access to public records.”

RelatedNews

5th Street at Parkville to be closed

Judge: Parkville must be more specific in ‘discovery’

Hearing set Aug. 7 in Sunshine lawsuit

The letter objects to the $7,000 price tag for requested information, hours spent by high-level city management culling information and correspondence the city may have withheld because it will negatively impact the city’s reputation.

Maki and his attorneys filed the requests for information under a state law designed to create government transparency and were seeking all correspondence, mostly emails and electronic correspondence, about the 350-acre residential, light industrial and retail Creekside development.

Maki and his citizens group have complained that the city met with developer Brian Mertz and his attorney, Patricia Jensen, before the development was presented to the public this past September.

Documents obtained by the group as a result of Sunshine requests, reveal that City Administrator Joe Parente cautioned city leaders to meet in small groups to avoid a quorum, to discuss the development. A quorum, under the law, constitutes an official meeting and therefore, would be a matter of open, public record.

The letter from Ed Greim of the Kansas City law firm Graves Garrett states that Parente and the city’s development director spent hundreds of hours sifting through information that Maki’s attorneys said are electronic correspondence.

“It is very unlikely that those two high-ranking city officials were required for programming or copying,” the letter states. When asked what these two officials were doing for 188.25 hours, the city provided no response,” the letter states.

However, the letter states that Parente told local media that he was “screening for possible protected personnel information.” Under the Sunshine Law, governmental personnel information is exempt from open records requirements and protected from public view. “It is highly unlikely the city routinely attaches personnel files to any emails, let alone emails about a community development,” the letter states.

The letter continues that officials may have been “screening records in hopes of preventing any unfavorable content,” which is illegal under the Sunshine Law. The letter states that the practice could allow the city to withhold some requested documents.

Maki said he has already paid the city more than $6,000 to fulfill some of the Sunshine requests and that more charges will be incurred as further requests are fulfilled. Maki contends the city is illegally refusing to release more information until he pays additional money.

“If their current methodology continues, I expect to owe $15,000 to protect my rights” to public information he said during a telephone interview. “That amount will continue to grow.”

The letter from Maki’s attorneys to the Missouri Attorney General adds that Maki “may be owed a substantial refund.”

The letter, dated April 15, is the third that Maki’s attorneys have mailed to the Missouri Attorney General, protesting what they consider the city’s possible illegal missteps. The attorney general recently acted on a January letter from Graves Garrett by asking Parkville officials to respond to the accusations.

When a reporter for The Landmark requested a copy of the city’s response to the attorney general’s inquiry, Parente said the city first would need to check with the Missouri Attorney General’s office. However, a letter from the attorney general’s office to the city mentions the openness of the city’s response to the inquiry.

“Note that your response will be treated as a public record,” the letter states, “retained by the Attorney General’s office and at some point your response might be provided to the public for review as an open record.”

Tags: parkvilleplatte countySunshine Laws
Debbie Coleman-Topi

Debbie Coleman-Topi

Debbie's journalism career began at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, where she was trained.

Her works have appeared in The Kansas City Star and its Sunday magazine, The (Independence) Examiner and TWINS Magazine. Debbie has written for The Landmark for the past four years where she has reported on a wide range of Platte County area issues and people.

These include the longest-running issue of her three-decade career--a massive development in Parkville, which spawned a citizens' movement that objects to the way city officials manage the city.

She is the author of "TWINformation: The Biology, Psychology and Development of Twins”, written in response to having and raising fraternal male twins (she and her husband later welcomed a girl to the family.)

She is also the author of “Memories of A War Bride,” which chronicles the life of her husband's Godmother, a WWII English war bride.

Debbie and her husband, John, live in Blue Springs, a long car drive from events and meetings she covers for The Landmark. In fact, when she first met publisher Ivan Foley, after answering his ad for a reporter she told him she should have packed a lunch for the long journey. When she heard no response following the job interview, Debbie called to ask if Foley was not interested in her joining the staff. He was interested, but assumed the drive was too long.

Obviously, he was wrong.

Related Posts

The Conspiracy Caucus

The Conspiracy Caucus

by Ivan Foley
January 22, 2021
0

It's sunny and expected to be 55 degrees today, Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021. I'm ok with that. I'm old enough to remember when we had big winter snowstorms. And I hope I didn't just jinx us. I think it's fair...

Karen

Dicks and Karens

by Landmark Digital Staff
January 22, 2021
0

EDITOR: Recently I had a "Karen" moment I'm not particularly proud about. Today, as I was reading Guy Speckman's article "Sedition and Snow Fleas," in the Jan. 13, 2021 edition of the Landmark, this excerpt made me laugh out loud....

Badges

Badges, Patrick and law

by Guy Speckman
January 22, 2021
0

Welcome to January 20th. You can now wear your Christmas gifts, without people knowing they were Christmas gifts. Enjoy. No one has asked me, but I'd leave all that fence and stuff up for Kamala's inauguration. How long will she...

45 Years Ago–January 23, 1976

by Ivan Foley
January 22, 2021
0

Mr. and Mrs. Daryl Grame of Platte City announce the birth of their daughter, Stacy Dee, on Jan. 15, 1976. She weighed seven pounds 11 ounces. The grandparents are Mr. and Mrs. Charles Grame, Platte City, and Mr. and Mrs....

Next Post

Saint Luke's ER doctor being sued in patient's death

Popular News

  • Jakob Scroggins

    Things ‘just make sense’ for North Platte senior

    34 shares
    Share 14 Tweet 9
  • Arson, murder charges filed in deadly blaze

    24 shares
    Share 10 Tweet 6
  • Scene of fatal fire

    17 shares
    Share 7 Tweet 4
  • Want the vaccine? Complete this survey

    12 shares
    Share 5 Tweet 3
  • Weston man dead at suspicious fire scene

    22 shares
    Share 9 Tweet 6
  • About Us
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
Call us at 816-858-0363

Copyright © 2019-2020 The Platte County Landmark Newspaper - All Rights Reserved

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Subscribe Online
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward

Copyright © 2019-2020 The Platte County Landmark Newspaper - All Rights Reserved