Welcome to the Official Website of Summit County Animal Rights Enforcement.  

Also known as:   SCARE

Akron, OH.  Summit County

SUMMIT COUNTY LAW DEPARTMENT HAS A HISTORY OF ATTEMPTING TO BLOCK ACCESS TO PUBLIC RECORDS REGARDING THE SUMMIT COUNTY ANIMAL SHELTER

12/7/03           

This letter is in response to Karen Doty’s statements to the media regarding an encounter that took place at the Summit County Law Department during the afternoon of September 12, 2003.  I would like to correct a few of the "facts" Law Director Doty has provided regarding the records request made regarding documents from the Summit County Animal Shelter which resulted in the County's “New Government Policy”. 

Another member of C.H.A.P. (Citizen’s for Humane Animal Practices), and I made repeated (at least four) requests during the month of August to review the records sought.  We were eventually told that the public records in question would be transferred to the County Law Department where we would be allowed to have access to them.

After approximately two weeks, Kasie Briggs, an attorney for the county, contacted us.  We were told that the records would be available on Friday, September 12th.  On September 12th, another member of our group, Patricia Shaw, and I went to the county law department at approximately 2:00 p.m.  After fifteen minutes, Kasie Briggs came out to the reception area and took us to an open area where a staff person named Theresa was assigned to monitor our activities.  The records were made available to us at about 2:15.  We reviewed the records for a little over an hour and after comparing those records with ones we had already obtained several months earlier, we identified six (6) pages, which clearly had been altered. (That is the “large amount" of copies the county is claiming we wanted.)  We requested that copies be made of the six pages at approximately 3:25 pm.  We were told by one of the two staff attorney's present, Kasie Briggs and Linda Murphy, that these copies could only be given to us if approved by Karen Doty, who they told us was "out of the office and unavailable". At that point I attempted to videotape the pages that I had wanted copies of.  We were then told that this was “illegal”.  At 3:28 a third staff member named Richard Mullins came out.  We told him that we wanted copies of the six pages that showed the alterations to the drug records. He asked the attorneys that were present whether that was a problem. They told him yes.  He then told us “if the evidence is here now, it will be here at the time of a public records request, which is the only way a public agency is required to deliver the information to you.”  He asked if we had made the request and we told him that we had, but that it had taken two weeks to just view the records. We then told him we only needed copies of the six pages.  He said, “Everything has to go through the legal department to redact non public information.”  He then said “these things take a long time, sometimes with the city it takes three to four months”!  When I asked again for just the six pages to be copied, he responded that it was “not procedurally how it has to be done by law, and that he could not order these people to change things.”   At this point there were five (5) people from the county standing there with us.   Then at 3:31, Karen Doty, (who just six minutes earlier was “out of the office”) appeared.  I asked her if she would approve the six (6) copies we wanted.  She declined to do it at that time saying, “you make the request, we will get them done, but it is almost time for us to close.”  (A copy machine stood ten feet away and I thought that county offices were open until 4:00.)  In as much as the county felt the need to expend the energies of at least Six (6) staff members to handle this simple request, it doesn’t seem too unreasonable to expect that six (6) pages could have been copied over the next twenty-nine minutes.  Please note that we have a time and date marked videotape of this exchange (a copy of which was also provided to the county!)  It was after this exchange that the county insisted that I turn off my video camera, which had been sitting on the floor.  They then proceeded to seize OUR records because THEY were confused!  These fine county lawyers could not tell the difference between their own original documents and the records we’d brought with us, even though our records were stamped “COPY” in BLUE ink.  After this, we were forced to immediately leave the law department.

After this incident, the county acted swiftly to impose unreasonable and unwarranted restrictions to the publics right to access records (the following Monday they came out with their NEW records request requirements) but took their time to return my property, which they had misappropriated. It was not until the following Thursday that I was told that I could have my documents back.  To help insure that I would get them back, I filed a police report to document the incident, this led to Karen Doty being interviewed by Mike Sangiacomo, a reporter from the Cleveland Plain Dealer concerning what had transpired.

In addition to the obvious concern we have about this specific incident, the responses we have on tape raise other issues, such as:

1)    Does the County law department really close before 4:00 pm? Are we citizens getting our money’s worth?

2)    Just how long does it take to make copies of six (6) pages?

3)   Why does it take five county attorneys to deal with two simple citizens?  How many county attorneys are   needed to deal with another attorney? Is it a lack of competence, or is mass intimidation of the public a common practice? Don’t these actions raise questions about the honesty and integrity of our county attorneys?

4)   If they lack honesty and integrity, should we trust them to determine what information should be redacted from public records? Should we trust them to carry out a complete and unbiased investigation?

5)   Why does the chief attorney for the County feel the need to misinform the media and the press?

6)    Can the media and the press, who are responsible for keeping an eye on the activities of our government leaders, truly rely on the word of these people?

7)    If they are willing to misinform the public and media about something like this, what else will they do to cover their indiscretions?  Threats? Intimidation? Retaliation?

8)    If true as asserted by Richard Mullins, why does it take the City of Akron four to five months to process their records?

On behalf of C.H.A.P., I want to express our appreciation for your willingness to look into this oppressive policy to obtain public records.  I have attached a copy of the new county public records request requirements imposed after this incident.  

                                                            Sincerely,

                                                             Deanne M. Christman-Resch

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