May 1997 Update & Report

Legislature takes positive
FOI steps

As the 1997 session of the Iowa Legislature moved to a close, it appeared that on balance the session was sensitive to freedom of information concerns.

A scoreboard might give the tally as 3-1, with a number of outright troubling or bad bills never getting out of committee.

The three gains:

Under Senate File 95, reports of boating accidents will now be handled under the public records law which mandates access to "the date, time, specific location and immediate facts and circumstances surrounding" such reports. Previously, the public had little or no access to information about boating accidents.

Under an omnibus crime bill, access to the names of juvenile offenders will be clarified and broadened. The test will simply be whether a person 10 or older has been arrested for any offense. Previously, before a juvenile's name was released there were questions about the severity of the offense and whether the matter was before the courts.

A third gain was in what did not happen. The Legislature did not revise a bill passed in 1996 to provide access to Iowa motor vehicle records unless a motorist has specifically "opted out" of provisions for access. Federal legislation, to take effect in September, calls for confidentiality of all motor vehicle records (although it does provide a dozen or so exemptions for police, insurance companies, tow truck operations, private investigators and others not including the public and journalists).

The South Carolina attorney general and others have filed a lawsuit challenging whether the federal secrecy measure is constitutional in that it applies to state, not federal, records.

As for the bad news:

One legislative loss dealt with House File 225, a measure to extend the records law to include non-profit organizations that hold gambling licenses. Such organizations already are covered by the open meetings law, and the records exemption is illogical.

Efforts to pass HF 225 will have to be resumed next session. Apparently, the organizations that hold gambling licenses or receive profits from gambling are more comfortable when the public does not know who is getting how much in the way of gambling money.

FOI litigation wrap-up:

UI hospitals, sick leave,buyout of SWCC president,ISU board all in court

A wide-range of litigation on FOI matters continues in Iowa courtrooms, including these cases:

The Iowa FOI Council filed an amicus brief on behalf of Karen Burton of Iowa City and her lawsuit to affirm that information about infection rates at the University of Iowa Hospitals is a matter of public record. Burton won at the district court level, but the UI Hospitals appealed to the Supreme Court, even though the material that Burton sought does not deal with any personally identifiable information about hospital patients. One of the hospital's concerns that the FOI brief focused on was the argument that the material should be kept secret because the public might misinterpret it. Drake Law Professor James Albert and third-year law student Julie Harders prepared the brief. Harders is a student in a joint-degree program of the Law School and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

In a case generating considerable local controversy and anti-news media sentiment, the Cedar Rapids Gazette seeks information about sick leave days taken by public employees. The Gazette Company has been joined in the litigation by the Iowa Newspaper and Broadcasters Associations and the Iowa FOI Council. On the other side are unions representing public employees. The issue resulted in some canceled subscriptions to the Gazette and the impression that police seemed more vigorous in enforcing parking regulations around the Gazette property.

Even though Southwestern Community College acknowledges the buyout of the former president of Southwestern Community College, the board of the public school wants to keep the settlement secret. The Creston News Advertiser, Des Moines Register and Iowa FOI Council have filed suit, pointing out that a previous court decision declared that such settlements should be public record. The former president, Richard Byerly, was under contract through June 1999 at a salary of $80,660 a year.

The Iowa State Daily Publication Board, Inc., has been declared a governmental body subject to the open records act as a result of a lawsuit brought by Partnership Press Inc., parent company of the Daily Tribune of Ames. Access to the records was sought in connection with the Tribune's efforts to circulate its publications on campus.

'97 annual meeting,
planned for Nov. 15,
features new format

The 1997 annual meeting of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, scheduled for Nov. 15 at Drake University, will feature a new format and two nationally known speakers on FOI issues.

Instead of meeting on a Saturday morning and ending with a lunch, Council trustees and members will meet in the afternoon, opening with a luncheon and closing with the annual business meeting.

The change was suggested by several executive committee members who thought that the 20th anniversary dinner and business meeting held last October had some nice touches we should try to incorporate every year.

This much is known:

The annual meeting will be held from about noon to 4:30 p.m. or so in the Olmsted Center at Drake University on Saturday, Nov. 15. Please reserve that date on your calendars.

Jane Kirtley, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, will be the luncheon speaker.

Barbara Petersen, executive director of the Florida First Amendment Foundation, will head a panel discussion on electronic access to information and related legislative issues.

Plans for the annual meeting will be completed at the summer meeting of the executive committee and reported to the membership in August or September.

Home on the page

Website for IFOIC fans:

www.drake.edu... click

The Iowa Freedom of Information Council has found a new home on the Internet. The Council can be visited at: www.drake.edu/journalism/foi/ifoi2.html

The council's page features electronic versions of its most popular publications including the seventh edition of the Iowa Open Meetings Open Records handbook, the Expanded Media Coverage handbook, as well as information on its Openness in Iowa video. The site also features links to the Council's history, officers, members, a question and answer section and an e-mail link to the council's executive secretary.

Fourth edition planned
for EMC handbook

A fourth edition is under way for the IFOIC handbook that explains how Iowa photojournalists and broadcasters are to cover judicial proceedings in the state under the Expanded Media Coverage rules of the Iowa Supreme Court. The Court designated the IFOIC as the central coordinator for EMC when the program began on an experimental basis in 1980.

Chief Justice Arthur McGiverin will write a new introduction for the fourth edition, which should be available by late summer.

Iowa libraries offer
FOI resource centers

After several months of planning, First Amendment/Information Access Resource Centers should now be found in each of almost 600 libraries throughout Iowa. Since mid-October the Iowa Library Association in concert with the Iowa Freedom of Information Council has distributed information packets to Iowa libraries, continuing the council's efforts to educate Iowans about their rights of access to government information and meetings.

The project was made possible under grants from the Knight Foundation, the National FOI Coalition and the Quarton-McElroy\Iowa Broadcasters Association Educational Endowment Fund.

The information packets contain a special edition of the Iowa Open Meetings Open Records handbook, a copy of the Openness in Iowa video narrated by former Gov. Robert Ray, an analysis of the public records law by the attorney general's office, and a copy of the United States Constitution. These items along with other intellectual freedom materials found in most library collections provide a starting point for the resource centers.

Libraries also could use the FOI material to supplement holdings on government information. For example, a library might also have available copies of the minutes from local school boards, city councils, county supervisors, etc.

Plans are to encourage other Iowa organizations such as the League of Women Voters and state and county bar associations to contribute material to the centers.

The Iowa FOI Council in concert with the Iowa Library Association hosted a series of Professional Development Workshops in local libraries across Iowa. Six regional workshops were held in Waverly, Algona, Storm Lake, Washington, Atlantic and Winterset.

Conducting the FOI parts of the program were Rusty Cunningham, FOI Council president and editor of the Ottumwa Courier, Todd Dorman, an EMC coordinator and reporter at the Fort Dodge Messenger; Dave Nixon, news director at KTIV-TV in Sioux City, Professor Jeff Smith of the University of Iowa School of Journalism, and Herb Strentz, council executive secretary and journalism professor at Drake University.

If your local library is not yet involved in the program or wants additional information, contact persons are Dawn Work of the Des Moines Public Library, (515) 283-4162, or Nannette Rodriguez at (515) 271-2295.

Ooops! Handbook missed
change in meetings law

Section 21.2 (f) of the Iowa Code, which defines governmental bodies, was revised in the 1995 Code of Iowa. The change was not made in the sixth edition of the Council's open meetings and open records handbook. The error continued into the new seventh edition, but is now being corrected.

What was omitted under the definition of "governmental body" is an exemption for "a county or district fair or agricultural society." Section 21.2(f) should say a governmental body includes:

"A nonprofit corporation, other than a county or district fair or agricultural society, whose facilities or indebtedness are supported in whole or in part with property tax revenue and which is licensed to conduct pari-mutuel wagering..."

The underlined material was omitted in the seventh edition on page 2 of the handbook. A new page is being distributed with the handbook. Copies of the corrected page can be obtained by contacting Nannette Rodriguez, Graduate Assistant for the IFOIC at 271-2295.

A similar exemption for agricultural societies is in the open records law at 22.1(3).

FOItems

A check list of items of interest to the Iowa FOI Community

Congratulations to Michael Gartner, editor of the Daily Tribune of Ames for winning the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. The Daily Tribune has been a sustaining member of the Council since Gartner and Gary Gerlach, a past Council president, assumed ownership. Mike continues to be a First Amendment/FOI evangelist on the state and national circuits. He will give the keynote address at the October meeting of the Iowa Library Association in Sioux City. He spoke at the 20th anniversary dinner of the Iowa FOI Council.

Thanks to the more than 100 Council members, trustees and friends who helped make that 20th anniversary dinner last fall a success. The 130-plus-pound plaque presented to executive secretary Herb Strentz is now mounted on a wall in Meredith Hall, home of the Drake School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The 24" by 36" tablet carries the text of theFirst Amendment and a thank you note to Strentz.

The number of sustaining members in the Council temporarily dropped for 1997 with the news that WHO-TV will not renew until January '98. That's some of the fall-out in business rearrangements with the sale of WHO-TV to The New York Times. But WHO-AM and KLYF-FM have renewed under their new Jacor Broadcasting ownership, and WMT, Cedar Rapids, may be under that banner, too. Also, we welcome Iowa Public Television aboard as a First Amendment member.

FOI graduate assistant Nannette Rodriguez will continue to work with the Council this summer and fall. If things go as planned, she will be joined in the fall by a graduate assistant from the People's Republic of China, Ms. Bai-Xue Wu. One other grad assistant spot remains to be filled so that when Rodriguez graduates at mid-year, Wu will not be alone in handling FOI duties.

If you missed mention of it elsewhere in this UPDATE, we say thanks again to the Quarton-McElroy\Iowa Broadcasters Association Educational Endowment Fund for a grant of $5,000 tohelp support the project of setting up the First Amendment/Information Access Resource Centers in Iowa libraries.

FOI Coalition circles the
wagons in Oklahoma City

About 35 members of FOI groups from around the nation met in Oklahoma City, April 18-20, for the annual meeting of the National FOI Coalition. The primary goals of the NFOIC are to serve as an umbrella organization for fund raising, to help state groups address common problems particularly those arising in state legislatures and to assist people trying to start new state FOI groups. Some items from that session:

The more active FOI state members in the coalition continue to include Texas, Florida, New Mexico, California, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah and Iowa. Efforts to start state groups are under way in Hawaii, Idaho, Rhode Island, Alaska and Oregon. Virginia and Georgia already are off to strong starts as newer members. Minnesota has a range of FOI activities, too. Michigan FOI activitieshave been set back by the Detroit newspaper strike, but there is an effort at revival.

Programs and conversations focused on the so-called usual suspectsissues dealing with electronic access to information, fees charged for records, how to get journalists and the public more involved in FOI concerns. No easy answers were offered, but it is comforting to know that problems in Iowa are not peculiar and that we do have enthusiastic and hard working colleagues around the nation.

Sue Hale of the Oklahoma City Oklahoman was re-elected president. Joel Campbell of the Salt Lake Deseret News was elected vice president.
The annual meetings of the National FOI Coalition are supported by a Freedom Forum grant that pays delegates' airfares.

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