Anderson County Council members respond to public records requests

By Liz Carey
Thursday, May 1, 2008

Some Anderson County officials say it's not that the records are not open but that the number of records requested is shutting down the government.

To investigate the issue, the Anderson Independent-Mail has requested not only all of the Freedom of Information requests the county has received over the past five years but the legal invoices for the county for the past five years.

In response, county officials said it will cost $17,874.03 to access those records.

Over the past six months, the Independent-Mail has requested a number of records, including access to the county's credit card transactions. Each time records were released, more questions arose, but actual records in answer to those questions became more difficult to get. Requests for the county administrator's salary became a six-week battle. But this week, Joey Preston did release his salary figure.

But the reason, Anderson County Council Chairman Michael Thompson said, is not that the county doesn't want to release the records but that the county is being slowed down by the voluminous number of requests.

"What I am seeing is, the county is swamped with FOIAs. (Preston) is getting information to the people that request it. The information really is getting out, but it takes time," Thompson said. "We have a full-time county employee whose job is basically to answer (council member) Cindy Wilson's FOI requests. I've spoken to him personally, and he says he spends 80 to 85 percent of his time answering Mrs. Wilson's requests."

On Wednesday, the Independent-Mail asked Anderson County Assistant Administrator Michael Cunningham if there was a county employee whose job it was to deal with FOI requests, but Cunningham did not respond to the question by press time on Thursday.

Thompson said he was not concerned about the amount of time it took the administration to answer requests. In fact, he usually didn't have any problems getting information from the administration, he said. Access to public records is not something that Anderson County residents are worried about, he said.

"My constituents don't spend a lot of time micromanaging the administration. If they have a problem, they bring it to me, and I get it resolved," he said. "They are tired of all this ying and yang going on and bringing the county down. Not only the constituents, but people who come up to me. People perceive us as being a bunch of nuts. Real estate is suffering because they see all the negativity on council, and they wonder whether or not they want to move here."

Ms. Wilson said her legal battles with the county are not the problem. The problem, she said, is the county's reluctance to allow the public to see those records.

"I have spent thousands of my own money to get access to those records, and the county has spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer money to prevent me from seeing them," she said. "For example, I paid what the administrator requested, $680 of my own money, to see legal vendor files. The county then paid 11 employees to black out everything but the name of the attorney, the date, the amount paid and what account in the county it was applied to."

The idea that it would take employees a lot of time to fulfill FOI requests for the past five years, she said, is an indication not that the county was overwhelmed but that the county was not well-run.

She said she is approached not only by her constituents but also by residents of other districts and other counties who tell her to continue her fight.

County Council member Bob Waldrep said the delay in getting records shows the administration is responsible for the problem.

"The administration has a siege mentality about public records. They seem to think the public records may reflect negatively on the county, so they don't want to release them," he said. "They don't like to release them, and when they do release them, they are incomplete. I'm certainly very unhappy to the response and availability to public records, records that the public is entitled to."

Waldrep said he has not only been denied access to records but that several times, when he has filed FOIA requests, he has been asked to pay for the records.

The Independent-Mail was told that to have access to legal expenses for the past five years, the cost to find those records would be more than $17,100, not including copying fees. To access some 650 FOIA requests the county has received over the past five years would cost more than $730.

"I think that is out of line. It's contrary to the spirit of open and transparent government," Waldrep said. "This is the last tactic they have … to slow you down and keep you from taking a look at it. We should be proud of the way we're spending the taxpayers money, not fearful of how we're spending taxpayer money."

Council member Larry Greer said he believes public records should be open to the public. He said the issue isn't one that is of a great concern to his constituents.

"I personally have never had any complaint with how I have gotten information," Greer said. "There have been a few times that I haven't had what I needed when I needed it, but for the most part, I've gotten what I requested. I have had no citizen's contact me indicating that they have not been able to get public records."

Council member Gracie Floyd said access to public records is the last thing on the minds of District 2 residents.

"Most of the folks who come up to me are interested in gasoline prices, dogs, houses to live in, street crime," she said. "Many of the people I talk with aren't interested in that kind of information."

For her, the frustration is that the number of FOIA requests are bogging down the administration, which does not allow her to get her job done, she said.

"I'm not opposed to public information. … I feel like, if it's legal for you to have it, then you should get it," she said. "But there's more to do than answer FOI requests. I can't get my stuff done because of all the secretaries and administrative personnel are working on other things."

Council member Ron Wilson said the political atmosphere in Anderson County creates the problem, as much as the response from the county adds to it.

"I think county government should be totally open. But I also think that county government in Anderson County is totally different than in Greenville or any other county," he said. "I doubt there is any other county that has as many questions as we have. I'm for open government, but I'm also for things being done in a fair and equal basis. I think the county should respond in a more timely manner when they can. …. I think things should be done in the open and above board, but I also think the politics in this county are damaging.

"Nobody wants this job. A lot of people don't want to get into this because they are savaged. There's no way you can be in this county without being in one camp or the other."

Council member Bill McAbee said the county does respond to all the requests it receives, regardless of the intent of the request.

"The county does respond to FOI requests in the time period required by law," he said. "You hope that everyone is acting in good faith and that (the requests are) not an intentional effort to disrupt government. But, legally, we have to respond, whether (requests are made) in good faith or not."

The system may not be perfect, he said, but for right now, it works the way it is supposed to, and the county handles the numerous requests it gets as best as it can.

McAbee said he has never seen all of the FOI requests the county has received, but he understands from the county administrator that they are numerous and that a great many of them pertain to the jail.

http://www.independentmail.com/news/2008/may/01/adnerson-county-council-members-respond-public-rec/