Jackson Jambalaya

The Mississippi Center for Public Policy rolled out the updates to its Seethespending.org website. The new version provides readers with spending records from 62 counties in Mississippi. MCPP President Forest Thigpen pointed out that Hinds County was the only county that did not respond to the request. WAPT's Bulldog Simmons reported

"WAPT's Scott Simmons went to the Hinds County Chancery Clerk's office to find out why the county hadn't responded.

"I will accept some responsibility here, but I am not going to accept the total responsibility because I sent it to the board attorney," said Chancery Clerk Eddie Jean Carr.

Carr said she received the request from the center on July 16, 2010, and forwarded it to the board attorney three days later.

"After your questions, we have gotten a call from the county attorney," Thigpen told Simmons.

Thigpen said the nonprofit group had waited 14 months for a response. Crystal Martin, of the county attorney's office, said a response was made to the request, but the number called was disconnected. Martin said it was assumed that the public information request was withdrawn."

As my old friend TNT on Tigerroar.com would say, UH-HUH. This is typical behavior for Hinds County attorneys as they repeatedly play games with public records request. When Mr. Thigpen made these comments this morning, I immediately assumed Ms. Carr gave the request to Ms. Martin as Ms. Carr runs a pretty tight ship and has never been linked to the controversies produced by the Supervisors and their lawyers. Sure enough, WAPT confirmed what I thought. I considered it to be a typical experience when filing public records requests in Hinds County.

When this correspondent filed a public records request for a copy of the Motorola Settlement, Attorney Precious Martin sent me an answer via certified mail. Yup. Certified mail. Then there is one I filed in April. I submitted this request in person at the courthouse downtown. A copy was made, stamped, and initialed so it could be shown if needed at a later date it was indeed submitted on that date. Its a practice I follow after other agencies such as Medicaid and the City of Jackson have somehow lost my requests only to suddenly find them when I produced the receipt.

The response to my request was late by one week. When I pointed out they were a week late and the date I submitted them, I was told she "disagreed with the characterization" of when it was submitted. Yes, stating the date on the receipt is a "characterization", something to be manipulated, you know, fuzzy math. two plus two could be characterized as being four but it could be characterized as being three, or five, or whatever I say it is.

Then there is the change order provided to the FCC for one million dollars against Sprint/Nextel by Precious Martin. The change order was mentioned in the minutes. It was submitted to the FCC. It definitely exists yet when I submitted a public records request for it this year, Ms. Martin wrote in a response the county "was not in possession" of the change order. Got to love Hinds County sophistry. However, a case last year showed the lengths to which Hinds County will pursue to avoid complying with public records requests.

Motorola filed a public records request on April 13, 2010. Hinds County "failed to produce or deny access in writing along with a statement as to the specific reasons for the denial of access to such records within such time period." The records requested were board minutes, reports, emails, accounting reports regarding security for Hinds County circuit judges and their courtrooms. Hinds County replied nearly a month later that such information was..... attorney work product or related to litigation. yes, board minutes are exempt from public records law if you claim work product or lawsuits.

The lawsuit dragged on for over a year as Hinds County attorneys used every possible excuse to delay final judgment. Judge Zebert found for Motorola and awarded over $8,000 in attorney's fees to Motorola. Hinds naturally appealed the judgment but Motorola filed a satisfaction of judgment and release on April 28, 2011. About the same time it settled the civil lawsuit over the use of the radio system by Madison and Ridgeland with Motorola.

So today we get the "phone is disconnected" excuse. Given Hinds County's handling of other requests, one can only speculate why Ms. Martin suddenly forgot how to use the United States Post Office. While she is explaining that, perhaps she can explain why she did not inform the supervisors they needed to get permission from the Wireless Commission before purchasing over $100,000 in EF Johnson radios or why a contract with Derrick Johnson was legal when he was not a licensed attorney.

Just like the Energizer Bunny. It just keeps going and going and going...