[net-gold] Sanctions Against Rumford Maine for FOIA violations Rumford Placed on "DO NOT FUND" List; Attorney Shame
- From: "David P. Dillard" <jwne@xxxxxxxxxx>
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- Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2012 08:52:09 -0400 (EDT)
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Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2012 14:34:04 -0400
From: Dwight Hines <dwight.hines@xxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: Net-Gold@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: Net-Gold@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Net-Gold] Sanctions Against Rumford Maine for FOIA violations Rumford
Placed on "DO NOT FUND" List; Attorney Shame
.
Sanctions Against Rumford Maine
for FOIA violations Rumford Placed on
"DO NOT FUND" List; Attorney Shame
.
Dwight E. Hines
Peru, Maine 04290
April 4, 2012
Email and U.S. Mail Certified #
7011 0470 0000 4934 5254
Mr. Carlo Puiia, Town Manager
Rumford, Maine 04276
Dear Mr. Puiia:
.
In my first paragraph in my letter
sent to you via email and delivered by
hand yesterday, I wrote:
.
?First, as far as I can tell, Rumford
does not have an information plan,
much less a strategic information plan.
There is little or no information
available about Rumford on the internet
and that is terrible, absolutely
terrible. Reading the responses to
my public records requests give me the
feeling that your attorney is likely
providing you and Ms. Palmer ?tips?,
cheap ?tips? on how to avoid, delay,
or block providing information that is
not exempt to requesters. Waiting
five and more days to respond,
responding close to or after the five
day limit with a barely cracked
access window of a single day at an
hour that I can not meet; claiming
attorney-client privilege when there
is none; pricing the costs of
reviewing records so much so that the
total costs are a constructive
violation of the Maine FOIA; and,
worst of all, showing by estimated prices
the real lack of an information system
that is necessary for efficient
management and the setting of realistic
and meaningful policies. Note that
I did not include all the various methods
used by Rumford to constructively
avoid complying with Maine FOIA requests.?
.
To this list I am now adding:
Incomplete responses to FOIA requests,
assignable by Ms. Palmer to your
attorney ?It?s what the attorney sent us.?
.
Your attorney, as an officer of the
court is required to follow the law.
Because your attorney is still nameless
to me, after numerous requests for
his name, I will hereinafter refer to
him or her as ?Shame?. In my request
for the court filings in the federal
case challenging the Rumford decisions
relating to the windmills, the response
was not just incomplete but missing
critical parts, such as the docket.
You are not in compliance with Maine
FOAA with that response.
.
Now, as far as paying for records of
personnel in the fire and police
department, I believe the cost is
prohibitive and not a consequence of the
time it would realistically take to
redact information. That is a testable
statement and would require, most
likely, a Judge to appoint a neutral
person to determine how long it would
take. One alternative is for me to
agree in writing, subject to perjury,
not to release, tell, write or make
use of any of the redactable information
and allow me to review the records.
.
Please provide me with a list of what
information is in the records that
must be redacted from personnel records
for the police and fire
departments. Just a list of categories,
like age, weight, previous arrests, etc.
.
Now, the use of additional methods to
avoid complying with Maine FOAA,
requires me to notify the Maine Bar,
and to request sanctions be applied to
Shame.
.
In addition, because compliance with
laws, small and little, have been
shown to be related to health and
welfare of a community?s citizens I am
placing the Town of Rumford on the
?Do Not Fund? list for federal, state,
and private funds. In times of
economic distress, when external funding
sources are scarce, it would be foolish,
arbitrary, and capricious for any
grantor to provide money or other
considerations to Rumford when equally
needful towns are in compliance with
the laws or are working hard to be
so.
.
Thus, I copy this letter to Glen Holmes,
Director, Western Maine Economic
Development Council, and take copies
of it to Augusta to give to Economic
Development and specialist funding
agencies. As you likely know, Governor
LePage has stated repeatedly the
importance of transparency, and the courts
have been consistent in ruling in favor
of transparency. Most, if any,
funding agencies do not want to go to
court for cases as obvious as this
one.
.
Finally, I am preparing a federal case
that is somewhat more than a plain
violation of Maine State Statutes so
it may not be appropriate to include
Rumford as a defendant, but I guarantee
you, given the number of ways
Rumford has consistently denied access
to public records, I will include
our correspondence in the complaint,
as well as my request to the Maine Bar
for sanctions for Shame**.
The Court will tell me if my complaints
against Rumford must, in the interests
of judicial economy, be combined
with the one complaint or filed
separately.
.
Because I have formally requested a
review of your decisions about costs of
redaction, and have formally requested
a list of the information that must
be redacted, and because you have failed
to comply with repeated requests
for the electronic records of the court
case, there is nothing to be gained
by my coming 24 miles into Rumford,
one way, to not receive the information
I?ve requested.
.
Please let me know when the 2011 audit
report will be placed on the web,
and when the agenda for the Selectmen?s
Meeting of the week of April 16,
2012, will be posted online.
.
Dwight Hines
.
** Please tell Shame that I accept
service of process by mail if he objects
to my name for him or her.
Copy:
Maine Bar
Scott Cole
Glen Holmes, WMEDC
Maine EDC
.
.
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- » [net-gold] Sanctions Against Rumford Maine for FOIA violations Rumford Placed on "DO NOT FUND" List; Attorney Shame - David P. Dillard
