AG: Crafting KY Pension Deform In Secret Was Illegal

If it's done in secret, you can be sure it's something that voters will hate.  As proven by the universal outcry against it the instant this fuck-the-teachers plan hit oxygen.

John Cheves at the Herald:

The Kentucky House of Representatives violated the state’s Open Meetings Act with a closed-door conference in August where lawmakers from both parties huddled to discuss their plans to deal with the state’s pension shortfall, Attorney General Andy Beshear’s office announced Monday.

The Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, a free-market think tank based in Lexington, challenged the legality of the private House meeting, arguing that the public should be able to watch anytime the House conducts business. The attorney general — whose opinion carries the force of law on open meetings and open records issues — sided with the Bluegrass Institute.

“A quorum of the House was present,” Assistant Attorney General Matt James wrote. “In closing the meeting to the public without an authorized exception, the House violated the Open Meetings Act.”

In its response to the Bluegrass Institute’s appeal, an attorney for the House said the entire legislative body did not technically meet that day. Rather, it was “a meeting of the House majority caucus, which was open to members of the House minority caucus,” and “both of these entities are specifically exempt” from the Open Meetings Act, the attorney argued.

That was a stretch, legally speaking, said Jim Waters, president of the Bluegrass Institute.

“They have no right to shut the people out of their discussions,” Waters said. “The formation of public policy is just as important as what the final policy turns out to be. And it’s important to remember that the open meetings law is something the legislature has imposed on other public entities to follow.”

Only one lawmaker walked out of the Aug. 29 pension meeting to protest the fact that it was behind conducted in secret — state Rep. Jim Wayne, D-Louisville.

Shame on the dems who did not follow Wayne out the door.

The punishment for violating Kentucky's Open Meetings Act is 30 days in the public stocks.

Sigh, of course not.  At very worst, the repugs will have to release video or audio recordings of the meetings.  Which could be illuminating.  But not as much fun as throwing rotten tomatoes at their faces.

No, Andy Beshear: Talking to Reporters Is Not A Firing Offense

Such a coincidence that the fired person is the one who makes sure the public knows what its government is doing. (Yes, that kind of reprimand is firing.)

You're a coward and a bully, Andy, and now we all want to know just one thing: What are you hiding?

John Cheves at the Herald:

A longtime champion of Kentucky’s government transparency laws retired Wednesday from Attorney General Andy Beshear’s office after she was reprimanded for speaking with a journalist.

“I came to this decision under considerable duress,” Assistant Attorney General Amye L. Bensenhaver, 58, wrote last month to Beshear. “It is clear to me I cannot survive, much less thrive, in the current office climate, and I have similar concerns about the open records/meetings laws.”

Bensenhaver was rebuked in a formal letter July 11 for giving an interview to retired editor John Nelson for a story he wrote in June on the 40th anniversary of the state’s Open Records Act and Open Meetings Act. Nelson’s story, commissioned by the Kentucky Press Association, ran in the Herald-Leader and other newspapers around the state. Bensenhaver had spent 25 years writing open records and open meetings decisions on behalf of the attorney general, whose word carries the weight of law on those subjects.

“You were quoted and cited as a representative of the Office of the Attorney General to the media, activity that falls outside the scope of your job duties, and without permission to do so,” La Tasha Buckner, executive director of the attorney general’s Office of Civil and Environmental Law, wrote to Bensenhaver. “Your actions in regards to Mr. Nelson’s article on the Open Records/Open Meetings Act have severely damaged your credibility and the trust that this office must have in you as an attorney.”

In an interview Thursday, Bensenhaver said she had hoped to stay at the attorney general’s office for another five years. But she felt pressured to leave because her superiors under Beshear kept interfering in the open government decisions for which she was responsible, ordering changes that did not strengthen the transparency laws. The reprimand was the last straw, she said

“I really did enjoy this work and I felt fortunate to do it for 25 years — or at least, for most of the last 25 years,” she said. “But I didn’t want to be put in a position where I was forced to make compromises in this important law that I helped to build.”

SNIP

Under Kentucky’s open government laws, most activities involving taxpayer funds must be conducted in public. Reporters and other curious citizens who are stonewalled by government officials routinely file appeals with the attorney general asking for a legal opinion. More often than not, a favorable ruling from the attorney general will pry loose the information in question.

David Thompson, executive director of the Kentucky Press Association, said Nelson called Bensenhaver for his story on the 40th anniversary of the laws because she is considered one of the state’s leading experts. Thompson said he occasionally had his own conversations with Bensenhaver when he wanted clarification about what records or meetings should be available to the public.

“Here she is, someone who devotes herself day in and day out to open government, and she literally gets in trouble for talking to a reporter about open government,” Thompson said. “I hate to see her go.”

Bevin Bullying Broke Law

Another nickname for our only guv:  Bully Bevin.

Am I the only one who thinks Governor Lying Coward is trying to compete with the Orange Menace?

John Cheves at the Herald:

It was a violation of the Kentucky Open Meetings Act for Gov. Matt Bevin to send state police to a May 19 meeting of the Kentucky Retirement Systems board of trustees and threaten to arrest the board chairman if he participated, Attorney General Andy Beshear said in an opinion released Tuesday.

Bevin sent police with his chief of staff, Blake Brickman, and Personnel Secretary Thomas Stephens to threaten to arrest Thomas K. Elliott, whom Bevin has been trying to remove from the board, and to interfere with board leadership elections scheduled for that day, Beshear said. Several armed troopers stood in the KRS board room during the day’s meeting.

Another board member who was interested in running for chairman, Vince Lang, was warned by Stephens that “the administration would immediately initiate an investigation” if he sought the post, Beshear said. The board decided to postpone its leadership elections because of pressure from the governor’s office and police, Beshear said.

Public agencies must be allowed to conduct open meetings free from harassment, Beshear said in his opinion.

“A behind-closed-door indication of arrest if a board member attempts to participate, or of an investigation of a board member who potentially may seek election as chair, made with the intent to alter decisions or behavior related to a public meeting for public business, violates the mandate that public business not be conducted in secret,” Beshear said.

“Moreover, the presence of multiple law enforcement officers, who can effectuate an arrest, at the request of someone other than the agency head or a quorum of the board, equates to conducting public business through force. Neither scenario has a place in a democratic government that must be open,” he said.

Why does Bully Bevin care about the Board that oversees the state employee retirement system?  Because that board decides how to invest billions of dollars in state worker contributions, and Bevin's billionaire buddies are out there slavering to get their talons into that money.

Read the rest if you care about how Bevin lied in response, and just how infantile he sounds lobbing playground insults at the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Hateful Homophobes Lying and Lawbreaking to Kill Civil Rights in Shelby County

Public commission members violating Open Meeting laws by meeting privately to discuss how to kill a popular proposal? Check.

Commissioners lying about their communications with elected officials?  Check.

Commissioners stonewalling and lying to avoid fulfilling their public duties and thus committing criminal malfeasance? Check.

The Shelbyville and Shelby County Human Rights Commission, and particularly its arrogant and unaccountable chair Gary Walls is desperately pulling every immoral and illegal stunt it can to stop Shelbyville from acknowledging the human and civil rights of its LGBT citizens.

From the Shelbyville Sentinel-News:

After being told by the Shelbyville City Council to approach the Shelby County Human Rights Commission for a recommendation on a Fairness Ordinance, members are now perplexed after being told by the commission that they would only give a recommendation at the council’s request.

“I asked them to go to the Human Rights Commission [for a recommendation to the council],” council member Shane Suttor said. “[Council members Mike] Zoeller, [Donna] Eaton…we all asked them to go to the Human Rights.”

For more than a year, McBride and members of the Shelby County chapter of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth along with members of the Fairness Campaign have been asking the council to accept a Fairness Ordinance, which would protect members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. The council has declined to vote yes or no on the subject, only voting to take no more action.

So Leslie McBride approached the Human  Rights Commission chairman, as requested by the council.

But she did not get the recommendation she hoped for.  In fact, she heard no recommendation whatsoever.

Gary Walls, serving as chair of the Shelby County Human Rights Commission, said the commission would not share their recommendation unless the council formally requested it in writing.

“We as a commission decided that we needed a formal request from the council before we would act on that,” Walls said. “We will not respond unless we are formally requested by the council.”

But Suttor said that leaves him a bit confused.

“I was under the assumption that we made that request publically at that meeting,” Suttor said.

Oh, it gets better.  Walls came up with that excuse after he and the other commissioners met privately, in blatant violation of the state's Open Meetings Law, to discuss how to respond to the City Council's request prevent those icky gays from getting civil rights like normal people.

This is a new procedure, that Walls said they put in place specifically for this issue, but Walls said he did not alert the Shelbyville City Council, Simpsonville City Commission or Shelby County Fiscal Court of this decision to require a formal written request.

“That’s not for me to do,” he said.

When asked if the Human Rights Commission had ever made a change like this before, Walls would not answer, stating only “There has never been an issue like this.”

Walls went on to explain that the commission has put together a recommendation, one that was formulated during a special called meeting on Sept. 1.

“It was an emergency situation,” he said explaining that the commission met “prior to the parade, behind the Baptist Church.”

Walls, by the way, is a former repug-lite Blue Dog Democrat who publicly deserted the Democratic Party after it nominated Barack Obama for president in 2008.

No surprise a confessed racist is also a vicious homophobe.

I think Suttor is sincere in his attempts to work the system in a way that will "force" the City Council to adopt a non-discrimination ordinance that council members want nothing to do with.

But I would not be surprised if other council members are in cahoots with Walls to kick this issue back and forth until Fairness proponents give up.

Good luck, assholes; we're never giving up.

How Conservatives Hide Government From Its Citizens

It'll start in the fall, as legislators pre-file bills for the General Assembly session in January. Bills with inocuous or even progressive-sounding names that hide provisions to break the social compact, eliminate jobs and create a lords-and-serfs economy.

And we won't even be able to find out how it happened.

Charlie Pierce:

The main point of the reign of Scott Walker, the twice-elected goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin, has been to dismantle the laws and traditions of progressive government that originated in that very state, because if they can do this in Wisconsin, they can do it anywhere. (For example, in the newly insane state of North Carolina.) One of the most important of these Wisconsin reforms was one of the toughest open-records laws that any state had.

Except maybe not so much.

The American Legislative Exchange Council, better known as ALEC, is being challenged for using Internet drop boxes and broad new assertions of privacy to shield from public view the discussions of elected officials and corporate leaders it brings together to write model legislation for state governments. In particular, the Arlington, Va.-based group has begun adding a disclaimer to documents it provides to state lawmakers contending that the material - including meeting agendas and policy proposals - isn't subject to the Wisconsin Open Records Law or similar laws in any state. Advocates for so-called sunshine laws said they couldn't see how Wisconsin lawmakers could legally withhold ALEC materials from public view. "A stamp by a private non-governmental group saying the records that it shares with lawmakers are not subject to open records laws should carry no weight," said Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council. "Absolutely none."

The evidence is that ALEC understands this basic principle as well.

Leah Vukmir, a Republican state senator from Wauwatosa, also serves as the group's national treasurer. She attended an ALEC conference in Oklahoma City in May. The center made a records request of Vukmir about a month before the conference, when ALEC typically distributes conference materials, and another request after she returned, said the Madison-based group's general counsel, Brendan Fischer. Vukmir's spokesman, Jason Booth, said he would have a comment next week. It's not clear why Vukmir hasn't turned over any meeting agendas or materials related to proposals that ALEC representatives discussed, including one sponsored by Vukmir that was passed unanimously, Fischer said. "They are a very secretive organization," Fischer said. "Their meetings are closed to the public, closed to the press, and the only way we've been able to get any information is through records requests."

Basically, ALEC is making the point that its work with legislators is not subject to the open-records law because it says that it's not. (Why ALEC has gone to such lengths to conceal what it's doing is an interesting question surely coming to a court near you.) The other point is that there is no Scott Walker, and ALEC. There is no Republican party, the conservative movement, and independent conservative organizations, think-tanks etc. It is all one movement with very defined goals. And if they can do it there, they can do it anywhere, and they're halfway home.

What ALEC-birthed monstrosity is your legislator getting ready to file?

Your Repug Public Servant

First, he denies you the information you need to live your life freely and safetly, then he denies your right to say anything about it.

Laura Conaway at Maddowblog:

North Carolina State Senator Tommy Tucker wants to let local governments out of the requirement that they publish legal notices about important government decisions -- like planning a sewage treatment plant by your house, for instance.

The Charlotte Observer reports that after Tucker jammed his bill through committee, he told a newspaper publisher, "I am the senator. You are the citizen. You need to be quiet."

The paper also notes that Tucker's proposal may be too much for his fellow Republicans, who now have unilateral control in North Carolina. Several of them are pushing the opposite kind of bill, one that would make it easier for governments to publish notices in the local paper.

(H/t Jim Romenesko)

If you've ever been to a meeting of your local county or city commission, you know this attitude - if not behavior this blatant - is common.

The only response is this:

"Wrong.  I am the citizen and you are the public servant.  You work for me."

And

"What are you hiding?"

Start Videotaping Your Local Government

They know gondamned well that Kentucky state law and the U.S. constitution mandate that public business be conducted in public, but they also know that most people don't know the law and can be intimidated into backing off.

Don't let your local officials get away with it.

Katie Brandenburg at the Ashland Daily Independent:

The Kentucky attorney general has issued a decision that a resolution adopted by the Carter County Fiscal Court violates state open meetings law and calls the resolution “unenforceable and inimical to the public good.”

The decision was issued on Thursday and addresses a fiscal court resolution, effective as of Sept. 1, restricting cameras and video recording of fiscal court meetings to the last pew of the fiscal court room.

The decision finds that “The Carter County Fiscal Court cannot, by ordinance, executive order, or resolution, abridge the statutorily invested right to videotape public meetings.”

Members of the Carter County Fiscal Court approved the resolution at an Aug. 9 meeting after asking Mignon Colley, Carter County Republican chairwoman, to move her video camera.

Colley issued a complaint to Carter County Judge-Executive Charles Wallace on Aug. 12, according to the attorney general’s decision. In it, she states that the resolution prevented her both from having a clear view of the court and picking up audio of proceedings.

In that complaint, Colley said it was impossible to record fiscal court discussions from the designated area, which is about 25 feet away.

She also emphasized that her camera is about the size of her hand and is mounted on a tripod that doesn’t obstruct the public’s view of proceedings or otherwise interfere with the meeting, according to the attorney general’s decision.

The decision also states that the fiscal court didn’t respond to Colley’s written complaint within the three business days it had to do so, which is also considered a violation of open meetings law.

Colley appealed to the office of Attorney General Jack Conway on Aug. 19 after receiving no response from the fiscal court, according to the decision. The attorney general’s office then issued a notification of the appeal to Wallace along with a copy of the contents of the appeal.

The fiscal court chose not to respond, according to the decision.

Colley said she originally began recording fiscal court meetings after an instance in June when she said the fiscal court went into an executive session without giving the general nature of the business to be discussed, something which is required under Kentucky’s open records and meetings law.

“At least with my video tapes, these people in Carter County can see what’s going on,” she said.

Colley said she was pleased with the attorney general’s decision.

“I think it was a right decision on the attorney general’s part to not allow them to infringe on anyone’s rights,” Colley said.

When contacted on Friday evening about the decision, Wallace said he didn’t know anything about the complaint. He also said that a decision from the attorney general was “just an opinion.”

According to the Kentucky attorney general’s website, the attorney general “issues legally binding decisions in disputes under the open records and meetings laws.”

Wallace referred comment on the decision to County Attorney Patrick Flannery. Flannery was not immediately available for comment.

The attorney general’s decision can be appealed in circuit court.

Before anybody starts cheering for Colley, let me just say that if the Carter County Fiscal Court majority were republican, Colley would probably be chasing Democratic Party videotapers out of the courtroom herself.

But through gritted teeth I will give Colley kudos for standing up to political intimidation, and possibly worse. County executives are not above using sheriff's deputies to enforce their tyranny.

Why Attending Boring City Council Meetings Is Never a Waste of Time

Do you know how many of your tax dollars are going to your local government officials, their corrupt friends, their idiot nephews and all the other hogs feeding at your local public trough?

If not, you can stop laughing at the ripped-off citizens of poor Bell, California. Because if you aren't attending meetings and reading budgets and asking questions and demanding answers, then you're just as vulnerable as Bell's taxpayers.

Robert Cruickshank at Calitics has a good local take:

So there's been a LOT of discussion in Southern California over the last week or so about the situation in the small city of Bell, one of the hundreds dozens of incorporated cities in Los Angeles County, where top city officials were making truly stunning salaries, nearing $800,000 in one case.

The story is being pushed hard by the right, which sees an opportunity to undermine both government and public employee unions - although these salaries weren't the product of a union contract, conservatives are ignoring that detail to imply that Bell is symptomatic of a bigger problem of "overpaid" public workers, so that we should simply impoverish everyone instead of making the relatively minor fixes to address the occasional abuse of the system.

But another story in the region has gone relatively underreported. Maywood, which borders Bell to the north, has laid off its entire police force and contracted with the LA County Sheriffs Department to police their city. In the SF Bay Area, San Carlos is considering a similar move. Here in Monterey, the Peninsula cities have been considering integrating their fire services, and already Pacific Grove has contracted with Monterey to oversee its fire services.

The real issues aren't that government is incompetent or that public workers are greedy, as the right-wingers would have us believe. Instead the truth is that California's city governments are in need of some fundamental reforms - including city consolidation - and that we need to do a better job of ensuring residents are fully engaged in the process of local government.

For more great details on how racism and segregation play a major part in the latest California clusterfuck, read the whole thing.

But right now I'd like to concentrate on the fact that you, personally, are responsible for the conduct of your local government officials.

First, you vote them in, whether by voting for them or by failing to rally your neighbors in support of their opponents, or by abdicating your citizenship by not voting at all.

Second, if you don't attend every council/fiscal court meeting, "work session," committee meeting and hearing, then when they cheat the taxpayers, it's your fault.

I cannot tell you what a difference it makes when actual voters show up at local government meetings. As a reporter, I attended far too many local government meetings at which I was the only non-official there. What that meant was that council members felt free to bar me from secret deliberations, demand I put public discussions "off the record," and refuse to let me see public documents.

But when actual voters were in attendance, it was much more difficult for them to justify such illegal behavior, and they usually didn't try.

Today, most newspapers can't afford to send reporters to every boring committee meeting - and believe me, they should bottle them as cures for insomnia - which means the elected and appointed officials on those committees are free to rip off the taxpayers - whether through extra payments to themselves, giving no-show jobs to friends and idiot nephews, or handing no-bid contracts to campaign contributors.

If you don't show up at those meetings to hold them accountable, then their corruption is your fault.

Show up at every single meeting. Get copies of your state's Open Records and Open Meetings laws, and carry them ostentatiously into the meetings. Challenge every attempt to make you leave or refuse to give you copies of the documents they are reviewing. Trust me - 999 times out of a thousand, their attempts at secrecy are illegal. Stand your ground, no matter what their corrupt "attorney" claims or threatens.

Have no doubt that YOU are the one with the power in that room. Every single elected and appointed official in your city or county works for you.

Don't ever let the fuckers forget it.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....