November 2, 2009Be ever vigilant about ads in your newspaper

The federal Housing and Urban Development department announced in early October that it has filed a complaint against a Rolla apartment complex, management company and manager for housing discrimination
based on race, race association, sex, and retaliation. These kinds of stories always cause me to think again
that I need to remind all the advertising managers at Missouri newspapers that you must be diligent in terms of watching the advertising that comes in to ensure that it is not discriminatory.
In this case, the government alleges that the landlord refused to rent to an African American woman, and that in another instance, an application by a single male to rent property was refused, with the landlord stating he preferred to rent to women.
The federal Fair Housing law requires that all advertising of residential real estate for sale, rent, or financing should contain an equal housing opportunity logotype, statement, or slogan as a means of educating the public that the property is available to all persons regardless of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.
The choice of logotype, statement or slogan will depend on the type of media used and, in space advertising, on the size of the advertisement. But if you are running display advertising in your real ... continued...

October 1, 2009Court decision could delay records request

First things first. Last month I reported on a decision by Attorney General Chris Koster’s office that would impact all of those who request sunshine law records. Unfortunately, I tagged the wrong state agency involved
in the situation.

I guess my mind was on the Department of Revenue’s announcement last year that it was substantially increasing the charge for records that previously were produced at reasonable prices. Businesses that use those records and the legislature itself set upon DOR in an effort to force it to view the cost of these records more favorably to the public.

I’m sure DOR thinks we are just picking on them. I’m sorry. Heap your wrath on DNR instead, folks.

This month I’m unhappy with the Eastern District Court of Appeals and the Missouri Supreme Court. (I know. I’m never happy.) There’s a recent decision by the folks at the Eastern District that I can predict is going to cause chaos down the road for requesters of public records.

Some time ago, Great Rivers Environmental Law Center requested certain records from the City of St. Peters. The city was concerned about the legality of closing certain records, so it invoked its rights under Section 610.027 to seek an opinion from the Attorney General’s Office ... continued...

September 1, 2009Learn phrase, 'This is a Sunshine Law request!'

This is one of those months when there are several important topics that should be addressed in this column, but none of which warrant the full column, so you get small snippets of important information rather than a
whole column on one subject. Think of it as Neopolitan Ice Cream rather than Chocolate alone!

The big news last month was the opinion by Attorney General Chris Koster as to whether the Missouri Department of Revenue violated the Sunshine Law by not responding timely to a request for access to public records relating to the E. coli testing results at Lake of the Ozarks. When that opinion came out, I blogged about it at http://mosunshine.typepad.com, so you may already know my opinion about that issue.

But it bears repeating here. All of you reading this column probably use the Sunshine Law daily. You interact with officials of public governmental bodies so much that they become friends. You take those relationships for granted, sometimes. You talk shorthand. They know what you want everyday when you go in, and they (I
hope) usually have it waiting for you so you don’t even have to ask for the records.

But that doesn’t change the law, and when it bites you, it really packs a punch. You forget to say, “This is a Sunshine Law request.” You ... continued...

August 3, 2009Attorney General sues district over openness

Just two months ago, I talked about my concerns over the slow response we had seen from Attorney General Chris Koster’s office and commented that I hoped we would see some strong signs of enforcement intent in regard to the Sunshine Law. It wasn’t but about one month later that the first action came, a lawsuit filed by his office against the Northeast Ambulance and Fire Protection District and two of its board members for
violating the sunshine law.

The suit alleges that the district board voted for a resolution to keep selected members of the public
from attending their meetings, and for actions the board and the district took in failing to provide
documents to the state auditor in response to a subpoena – a count in the lawsuit that is still somewhat sunshine-law related.
 
“Missouri’s Sunshine Law is crystal clear that both state and local governments must be open to the people,” Koster said in his press release about the suit. “Governmental bodies cannot make arbitrary rules to keep citizens out of the process.”

The resolution was apparently related to some similar ordinance from last year that is not further described in most news stories I read. The count relating to the subpoena indicates that the state auditor first ... continued...

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