JOHN CABELLO

STATE REPRESENTATIVE

Working Hard and Representing You in Springfield!

Isaac Guerrero: It’s Sunshine Week. How open is your government, Rockford?

by | Jun 23, 2016 | Media |

Abuse of power comes as no surprise.

Those words, written in red capital letters, are emblazoned on a postcard made of balsa wood that hangs above my desk in the newsroom. I bought it years ago in the gift shop at the Museum of Metropolitan Art (MoMA) in New York City. The message on the postcard is a Jenny Holzer “truism.” She’s one of my favorite visual artists. As cynical as the message may be, it makes you think, and that’s why I love it.

Holzer’s truism rings especially true this week because it’s Sunshine Week — a national initiative to promote dialogue about open government and freedom of information. Participants include news organizations, civic groups, libraries, nonprofits, schools and others interested in the public’s right to know.

The Florida Society of News Editors launched Sunshine Sunday in 2002 after some legislators there tried to create scores of exemptions to the state’s public records law. The campaign was credited with defeating most of those lawmakers’ efforts.

Other media organizations took notice, and in June 2003, the American Society for Newspaper Editors hosted a Freedom of Information Summit in Washington, D.C., where the annual Sunshine Week initiative was born. This nonpartisan, nonprofit initiative is celebrated in mid-March each year to coincide with the March 16 birthday ofJames Madison, the man who wrote the Bill of Rights and later served as our country’s fourth president.

This year, the Rockford Register Star is recognizing Sunshine Week in a couple of ways. We’re going to give you, the reader, tips on how to use the FOI Act to better understand how government is or isn’t working for you.

We’re also conducting a sunshine experiment. Last Thursday, I filed seven FOI requests to shine a light on how state lawmakers from the Rockford area are working for us. I sent the FOI requests to state senators Steve Stadelman, Dave Syverson and Tim Bivins and state representatives Litesa Wallace, Joe Sosnowski, John Cabello and Brian Stewart.

I asked each of them for copies of all incoming and outgoing emails from their various email accounts for the week of Feb. 29-March 7, 2016. I also asked for a copy of each lawmaker’s electronic daily calendar entries for the same week. I expect that the Register Star will receive responses to our FOI requests this week, and we’ll keep you posted as to what we find. The results should be interesting for a couple of reasons.

Lawmakers haven’t been able to agree on terms of a state budget for more than a year. Legislators were in session March 1-3, but they left Springfield without passing a budget. However, House Democrats did manage to OK $3.7 billion in spending, which the GOP opposes, to fund higher education and social service initiatives. Lawmakers have not identified where they’ll find the $3.7 billion. Perhaps the emails we’re seeking will shed light on that matter. Or perhaps the emails will provide insight into what our Rockford-area delegation did that week.

There’s another, more important reason, for our FOI requests. When you file a FOI request, you’re not obligated to explain why you’re seeking whatever records you’re seeking. The Illinois FOI Act requires that the public body must respond to your FOI request within five business days in one of three ways. The public body must give you responsive documents, ask for an extension of time to comply with your request or deny some or all of your request for various exemptions allowed by the law. It will be interesting to see how our Rockford-area lawmakers respond to the FOI requests they’ve received and how quickly their responses come.

The FOI Act is sometimes called “the oxygen of democracy” and it’s certainly essential to my job. I’ve filed dozens of FOI requests so far this year. Without the FOI Act, the Register Star couldn’t have tackled many of the stories we’ve published about the ongoing FBI investigation of Winnebago County government.

For example, when I got a tip in December that FBI agents had executed a search warrant at the downtown Public Safety Building, I filed a FOI request with the county for a copy of the warrant. The county provided me with paperwork indicating that agents had searched a “private men’s shower room” in the PSB basement on Dec. 16, 2015, and seized a sauna. The sauna, as we subsequently reported, had previously been kept in County Board Chairman Scott Christiansen’s home.

I used the FOI Act to obtain another search warrant document from the county after I learned that FBI agents in September had searched and seized items from former purchasing director Sally Claassen’s office. Agents seized 15 items in all, including memos, bid documents, payroll records, and a Samsung tablet and charger.

  • FBI Search Warrant

    Lawmakers haven’t been able to agree on terms of a state budget for more than a year. Legislators were in session March 1-3, but they left Springfield without passing a budget. However, House Democrats did manage to OK $3.7 billion in spending, which the GOP opposes, to fund higher education and social service initiatives. Lawmakers have not identified where they’ll find the $3.7 billion. Perhaps the emails we’re seeking will shed light on that matter. Or perhaps the emails will provide insight into what our Rockford-area delegation did that week.

    There’s another, more important reason, for our FOI requests. When you file a FOI request, you’re not obligated to explain why you’re seeking whatever records you’re seeking. The Illinois FOI Act requires that the public body must respond to your FOI request within five business days in one of three ways. The public body must give you responsive documents, ask for an extension of time to comply with your request or deny some or all of your request for various exemptions allowed by the law. It will be interesting to see how our Rockford-area lawmakers respond to the FOI requests they’ve received and how quickly their responses come.

    The FOI Act is sometimes called “the oxygen of democracy” and it’s certainly essential to my job. I’ve filed dozens of FOI requests so far this year. Without the FOI Act, the Register Star couldn’t have tackled many of the stories we’ve published about the ongoing FBI investigation of Winnebago County government.

    For example, when I got a tip in December that FBI agents had executed a search warrant at the downtown Public Safety Building, I filed a FOI request with the county for a copy of the warrant. The county provided me with paperwork indicating that agents had searched a “private men’s shower room” in the PSB basement on Dec. 16, 2015, and seized a sauna. The sauna, as we subsequently reported, had previously been kept in County Board Chairman Scott Christiansen’s home.

    I used the FOI Act to obtain another search warrant document from the county after I learned that FBI agents in September had searched and seized items from former purchasing director Sally Claassen’s office. Agents seized 15 items in all, including memos, bid documents, payroll records, and a Samsung tablet and charger.

    Obtaining that document was crucial to many of the stories I’ve since written about the FBI probe.

    Claassen was placed on administrative leave in August after an internal county audit revealed that she allegedly had used a county credit card to buy more than $60,000 worth of personal items, including three resort vacations and kitchen cabinets, countertops, and appliances and furnishings for her home. Claassen resigned on Sept. 11. No charges have been filed as a result of the FBI’s ongoing investigation.

    The FOI Act provides journalists a useful tool. But Illinois has nearly 7,000 units of government — far more than other states — and there are simply not enough journalists in our newsroom or any other to shine a light in every dark corner of the Land of Lincoln. The good news is that anyone can use the FOI Act to cast light on the shadows.

    On Wednesday, I’ll share some tips and tricks to help you use the FOI Act to do just that.

    http://www.rrstar.com/article/20160312/NEWS/160319785/?Start=1