On Monday, WOUB’s David Forster published a story with the headline “Email exchanges detail how the city of Athens fell victim to a $700,000 cyber scam.”
“Dozens of emails released by Athens Friday show how the scammers were able to insert themselves into an existing thread of legitimate email exchanges without notice and then start sending their own emails to redirect payments for work done on the fire station,” David wrote.
What David didn’t know was why those emails were released in the first place.
I requested those records — specifically, the emails between the scammer and city officials, and internal communications once the theft was discovered — back in December. The city claimed the emails were “specific investigatory work products” that are exempt from public records requests.
To get the records, the Athens County Independent filed a writ of mandamus with the Ohio Supreme Court on Friday, Feb. 21. Although our case is still open, the city abruptly released the emails last Friday, March 15 … in a mass email to the news media instead of directly to the person who requested them. (No shade to David — he was just doing the job, and wrote a great article!)
So don’t be angry that WOUB got the records and wrote an article. Be angry that we had to sue the city to make it comply with the law — because the same thing could have happened to you.
Public records laws don’t exist to help journalists. They exist to ensure that YOU can know what our government does in our names. You have the same right that we do to see officials’ emails, police records, code enforcement logs — whatever. The Ohio Attorney General’s Office publishes an annual guide to the state’s Sunshine laws so you know how to request them.
State law requires entities to fulfill public records requests “in a reasonable period of time.” Some folks are more reasonable than others.
I’m grateful to Bruce Steenrod, treasurer of Federal Hocking Local Schools, for his diligence in working through a very long list of requests I made earlier this year. Debbie Walker, clerk of Athens City Council, and Athens County Auditor Jill Davidson, also spring to mind here.
On the opposite end of the spectrum we have Hocking College, which still has not fulfilled the requests we made two years ago for complaints against the college’s police department and the college’s Title IX complaints and investigations.
Maybe we should sue. It seems to work.
Cheers,
Corinne Colbert
Co-founder & Editor in Chief
P.S. The only thing I’d add to David’s reporting is to note that every invoice from Pepper Construction carried the same notice at the bottom of the page:
“Attention: Pepper Construction will never initiate a change to banking information via phone or email. Please reach out to a known Pepper Construction contact should you receive this type of request.”
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