Public Enemy
Gov. Scott’s public records bungle violated the law and the constitution. But it didn’t surprise anyone
W
e already know that Gov. Scott disdains public broadcasting, public opinion, public housing, public education and public employees. So we should not be surprised that he’s equally dismissive of public records laws. Yet Scott’s admitted destruction of two months of emails from his administration’s transition — the period between Election Day to his lavish $2.5 million inauguration party — shocks even jaded observers. Scott’s team allowed as many as 50 email accounts to be erased from the computer server of the private company used to host communications during his transition — a crucial (and revealing) time in any administration, during which policy is crafted and hiring decisions made. Those emails — like any documents generated by elected officials on policy matters — are public records, and must be retained,
public records requests. (It does not.) Given the Scott Administration’s tendency to hide, destroy or avoid creating public records, one might not expect to find all that much of interest in its communications. But that hasn’t stopped officials from doing everything in their power to avoid complying with public records requests. First Amendment Foundation Director Barbara Peterson noted as much in a conversation with Folio Weekly last week. One of their early tricks was to claim that the only person who could review emails to determine if they were public record was the “custodian” of the records — i.e. the same highly paid staffers that created or received them. Because of that, Scott’s staff charged Peterson an hourly rate, based not on the lowest-paid staffer capable of reviewing records — the standard at virtually every other public
Longtime Florida political reporter Ralph De La Cruz puts it bluntly: “Gov. Rick Scott has seemed about as comfortable with public records as Rick Perry might at a ‘Brokeback Mountain’ screening.” archived and provided to the public if sought. That didn’t happen. Not even close. Despite warnings in late January from the transition team’s online communications firm* that the accounts would be “shutting down Jan. 31” and urging team members to “take time the rest of this week and weekend to copy any of the data you will need,” Scott and his staff made no attempt to copy and preserve the hundreds if not thousands of public record emails. The email purge is bad enough, but the Scott Administration compounded the wrong by lying about it about it for at least four months. Reporters began asking for transition emails in January, right around the time they were deleted. But the Scott camp, which says it didn’t determine until April that the email accounts were gone, delayed telling reporters that until August. Even then, they hedged. After admitting the email accounts were deleted, administration officials tracked down a few dozen emails from staffers’ home computers — 147 emails total — and then claimed they’d recovered “most” of the missing emails. Considering that the transition team used 50 email accounts over a two-month period, one can only assume they used digital communications about as often as their counterparts in 1994. In fairness, Scott himself eschews email, precisely because he knows it creates a public record, and he doesn’t want the scrutiny. His former top lieutenant, Mary Ann Carter, took her boss’ aversion a step further, refusing to answer emails on her work account, believing (incorrectly) that her personal email account would shield official communications from * Harris Media, whose VP of marketing and business development is Scott’s daughter, Ann.
agency in Florida — but on Mary Ann Carter’s $200,000 a year salary, for instance, or Brian Burgesses’ $147,000 a year salary. Another trick is to force up-front payment for records, and then not produce them. Peterson is still waiting for records she requested and paid for in the first week of March. In some cases, she’s still awaiting a fee estimate, without which the administration won’t even begin processing a records request. “The law says we have a reasonable right of access to public records,” says Peterson. “Is it reasonable to wait three months — for emails?” It’s not reasonable, but it’s a seemingly congenital defect in this administration. The St. Petersburg Times dubbed the scandal “another public records affront” by the governor, one that showed “signs of a cover-up.” Longtime Florida political reporter Ralph De La Cruz puts it more bluntly: “Gov. Rick Scott has seemed about as comfortable with public records as Rick Perry might at a ‘Brokeback Mountain’ screening.” Scott did ask the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the email destruction, an announcement he made on a Friday evening in late August — the absolute nadir of media attention. But there’s not much he can do to repair his rep as a transparency-averse governor, one who has failed rather spectacularly to live up to his promise of accountability. “What’s upsetting me the most is I don’t see anybody taking responsibility for it,” comments Peterson. “I haven’t heard anybody say, ‘I’m sorry we violated the law, it’s my responsibility.’ I hear them going, ‘Oops!’ When we’re talking about an admitted violation of state law, and of our constitutional right to access, and they’re going oopies? That’s disturbing to me.” Anne Schindler themail@folioweekly.com AUGUST 30-SEPTEMBER 5, 2011 | folio weekly | 5