From: Venice Florida! dot com
Date: 01/19/06
Time: 10:17 AM

The following is a public statement from Venice Florida! dot com

There is still no response from city hall as to whether or not the EPA shade meeting transcripts will be made available. These requests started well over five weeks ago, just prior to the city's sentencing in the criminal case of U.S. vs. the City of Venice Florida.

All efforts to obtain the transcripts for the past month have been met with silence. This web site has received an unofficial explanation that the second transcript is lost, this from a city hall employee and confirmed by the court reporting agency. Given the history of information flow from city hall over the past few years, this is a story that we neither believe or disbelieve at this time.

Any other responses from the city have involved statements along the lines of 'we are looking into this' with no follow up as to what has been looked into and what, if any, decision has been made.

After receiving a request for public records, the city is legally obligated to do one of two things:
a.) provide the requested public documents, or
b.) provide a legal reason as to why those documents cannot be provided.

To date, the city has done neither.

In the present case, the city held off originally, stating that they would not release the documents until their final sentencing, which took place in December of last year. That was arguably a questionable reason for withholding release, but since the sentencing was about a week away at the time, it was decided to hold off until after the sentencing before pursuing the matter. This site reluctantly agreed and asked at the time that the documents be provided following the then-upcoming sentencing hearing.

Despite numerous e-mails and visits to the city clerk's office since that time, no adequate response has indicated when, if ever, that the city will release either of the two transcripts or any satisfactory on-the-record explanation for withholding release of either of the documents.

As a result, the options are not pretty. Painfully and with a great deal of reservation, this site is considering the filing of a criminal complaint as outlined in Chapter 119.10 of the Florida Statutes.

This is an option of last resort, one that it was hoped would never have to be used, but if the wall of silence continues, it is the only logical and available next step in the process of trying to obtain these documents.

Let us hope that cool heads prevail and that such an action is unnecessary.

In the mean time, this web site strongly urges that the Venice Gondolier Sun and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune join in and strongly push for the public release of these documents.

John Patten is the head of Web Operations for Creative Pages, and has worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He can also be incredibly rude at times.