by Joe Wilhelm Jr.
Staff Writer
It asked and it received.
The City of Jacksonville’s Ethics Commission asked at its Oct. 20 meeting for a response to allegations that the City’s Office of General Counsel was not complying with public records requests from a local newspaper. Assistant General Counsel Stephen Powell addressed the allegations in a letter to Ethics Commission Chair Jay Williams.
Referring to a phone conversation with Williams, “As I said when we spoke, neither the (Ethics) Commission nor the public should be left with any doubt as to the City of Jacksonville’s commitment to comply with the law,” said Powell in a letter dated Nov. 12. “The City and the Office of General Counsel are committed to full, transparent compliance with the Florida Public Records Law and would not knowingly conceal any non-exempt, non-confidential records or deny any member of the public access to them.”
The City’s Ethics Counsel John Phillips attended the meeting by phone. Commissioner Pat Sher, who made the request for an explanation, was unable to attend.
The letter from the Office of General Counsel addressed a number of “false statements” it felt were a part of Folio Weekly’s Oct. 7 cover story, “Stadium Scam.” The story detailed the publication’s efforts to obtain contracts from the renovation of the Gator Bowl, now known as Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, and records from the Super Bowl Host Committee that worked in support of the 2005 Super Bowl in Jacksonville. Powell dismissed Folio’s claims that the office he represents delayed the records search at all.
“The article overstates what was requested initially and makes it appear that the City concealed records,” stated Powell in the letter. “Moreover, it inaccurately relates the City’s efforts to otherwise respond to the requests. To the contrary, the City’s response to all of the requests in question were prompt and in good faith.”
Powell also pointed out that the author of the story had a problem with math because 33 boxes of documents requested were available for review, not the 25 reported in the story.
The City also maintains that “the Super Bowl Host Committee was a private, not-for-profit corporation that was neither created or controlled by the City nor housed in City Hall or on other City property.” Without association to the organization, the City claimed it did not have records from the host committee that were requested in 2005. A new request in 2007 “for a more generic range of Host Committee records” produced 1,083 pages of information received by Deputy General Counsel Karen Chastain while she worked as the Mayor’s liaison for Super Bowl XXXIX and “was furnished within the month they were requested.”
Members of the Ethics Commission in attendance agreed that the Office of General Counsel had provided what the commission asked of it.
“The General Counsel’s office has responded with a reasonable response,” said Mary Alice Phelan, commissioner. “I don’t think we should go any further with this.”
In other Ethics Commission news:
• Current Vice Chair Gene Filbert was nominated as chair of the commission for 2009 and Commissioners Kirby Oberdorfer and Braxton Gillam expressed interest in the vice chair seat.
• Commissioners Filbert, Mary Alice Phelan and Helen Ludwig formed the nominating committee to select the new vice chair.
• Phelan will be stepping down at the end of the year and the Ethics Commission is accepting resumes from people interested in joining the commission. Applicants are asked to submit a resume, a statement on why you want to be on the Ethics Commission and a statement explaining what qualifies you to be on the Commission by Wed., Dec. 10 to Carla Miller at [email protected] or fax to Christine Lyle, Ethics Office, at 630-2388.
• The Ethics Commission agreed to have its holiday party at the River Club on Dec. 17. Phelan is a member and the commission will be her guest. Commissioners will pay for their own meals
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