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| 6/22/2010 2:38:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | Lakeland Times again refused copies of county employees' emails
Additional emails from two county employees sought, some denied
Oneida County officials have denied The Lakeland Times access to 84 emails written over the past year by two employees while they were on the job for the county clerk of courts office.
The Times made the written request May 13 seeking copies of emails written on the computers used by clerk of courts Gina Olson and her assistant Traci Running over the year preceding the May 13 request. It took one month for the clerk's office to gather the documents.
In a letter dated June 15, Olson told the newspaper, "I have prepared for release 974 pages of emails that were retrieved and responsive to your request ... I have determined that 35 emails of mine and 35 emails of Ms. Running will not be released.
"In reviewing the 35 emails of mine and 35 emails of Ms. Running, there was nothing that was related to any business matter with the Oneida County Clerk of Courts office contained in them, therefore they are purely the personal property of myself and Ms. Running and have no relation to the Clerk of Courts office and are not considered records to be released as responsive to your request."
The Times made the May 13 request to see if any of the emails may contain information related to the public reprimand given to Olson by the two presiding Oneida County judges in early May after she had admitted to having a long-running sexual affair with a former sheriff's deputy in the courthouse during courthouse business hours.
The deputy Steve Ramm was forced in March to resign from the Oneida County Sheriff's Department over the scandal.
Olson has refused to resign and has taken out nomination papers to run for her office in the fall election.
Olson went on to say in the letter, "Fourteen emails from my computer are being withheld as they are communications with the county attorney and are covered by the attorney-client privilege and/or are considered work product not subject to disclosure."
Olson said in her letter that she was charging The Lakeland Times $243.50 for copies of 974 pages of emails and charging an additional $177.42 for the four hours she claimed to have worked in fulfilling the open records request.
Dividing the $177.42 by the four hours claimed by Olson for working on the request would mean Olson is paid $44.36 per hour. That figure includes her salary of $28.22 per hour, the remaining amount for payment of fringe benefits.
County finance director Margie Sorenson told The Lakeland Times that the figure used by Olson in charging for her time was correct - with salary and fringe benefits included Olson makes about $44.36 per hours. Her annual salary is $55,037, according to the county's office of Labor Relations-Employee services. Adding what she is paid in fringe benefits to her salary Olson receives annual compensation from the county for more than $91,500.
Olson said that state law allows her to charge the "actual, necessary and direct cost" of locating records if the cost exceeds $50. Sorenson said that charge was the "actual, necessary and direct cost" for locating the records. The Lakeland Times was billed a total of $420.92 for the request.
In her June 15 letter, Olson did not state that any of the emails sought by The Lakeland Times were "unrecoverable" or had been deleted.
Before this story went to press The Lakeland Times had not yet been able to review the documents that were to be provided as part of the open records request.
Earlier open records request
This latest open records request ties in with another similar request made by The Times in February. After that request was made, Oneida County officials, including clerk of courts Gina Olson, denied The Times copies of more than 160 emails allegedly written by county employee Traci Running on a state-owned computer while working for the county.
The Times was conducting an investigation after receiving a tip that Running may have been writing personal emails while working at her county job.
The officials claimed those emails, though written while working for the county, were the personal property of the employee who wrote them. They also claimed dozens of other emails could not be recovered because they were deleted in a manner different than usual.
Other emails The Times requested earlier for a nearly eight-week period were also deleted, but in such a manner that they were able to be recovered.
However, a vast majority of emails sent during that period could not be recovered because they were deleted, The Times suspects, in a purposeful manner so that they could not be recovered to be part of the investigation.
Lakeland Times publisher Gregg Walker asked the Wisconsin Department of Justice to investigate the circumstances surrounding the deleted and unrecoverable emails.
That office then deferred to county district attorney Michael Bloom. Bloom said a special prosecutor was appropriate because of his daily contact with the clerk of courts office. Earlier this month St. Croix County District Attorney Eric Johnson agreed to investigate the complaint.
Bloom said the special prosecutor would investigate the following issues:
• Can the date and time when the subject deletions were accomplished be determined and, if so, did any occur after Feb. 17, 2010, at 11:21 a.m.? (this is the date and time the subject open records request was forwarded to the clerk of circuit court via email).
• If any of the subject deletions occurred after Feb. 17, 2010, at 11:21 a.m. can it be determined how the deletions were accomplished and whether such deletions were intentionally accomplished so as to render them 'irretrievable?'"
Bloom said in his letter "that sec. 19.35(5), Stats, prohibits the destruction of any public records at any time after the receipt of an open records request requesting the disclosure thereof. I agree that, if such conduct were proven to have occurred, it would constitute a violation of Wisconsin's Open Records Law and, potentially, depending on the circumstances, misconduct in public office, contrary to sec. 946.12(2), Stats. As such, it is my opinion that some form of investigation is warranted."
State Supreme Court case
The Wisconsin Supreme Court is considering Schill v Wisconsin Rapids School District to determine whether the personal emails of public employees that are maintained on publicly-owned computers are subject to disclosure under the public records law.
A decision on the case could come as soon as later this month.
In April 2007, a private citizen, Don Bubolz, filed a request with the Wisconsin Rapids School District under the public records law seeking all emails sent from the computers assigned to five teachers for the period of March 1, 2007, through April 13, 2007.
Bubolz later said he was making the request as a "fishing mission" to determine if the teachers had been using their district email accounts for more than just occasional personal messages. The district's computer use policy allowed its teachers and other employees to use the district's email for occasional personal use. District employees were advised that the district owns not only the computers, but the email accounts used by the employees.
The district informed the teachers that it intended to release all of the requested emails. It concluded that the emails constituted public records, in large part because they were maintained on a public computer network.
The teachers filed an action seeking an injunction to block the release of their personal emails. They did not object to the release of any emails regarding their work.
The circuit court denied the injunction and affirmatively ordered the district to release all of the personal and work-related emails. The court directed the district to delete personal information, including home addresses, medical information, and bank account numbers.
The Supreme Court will decide whether the personal emails are "records" under the public records law. According to the parties and the Court of Appeals, there is no published case in Wisconsin that addresses whether purely personal emails kept on a public computers constitute public records under the statute.
If the emails are found to constitute records under the public records law, the Supreme Court will be called upon to perform a balancing act in deciding whether the presumption favoring disclosure of public records is overcome by the public interest in protecting the privacy and reputational rights of its citizens.
The Lakeland Times has already determined that if the state high court rules that the emails cannot be withheld, it will file suit to be given copies of all of the emails Oneida County has denied access.
Joe VanDeLaarschot can be reached at jvandelaarschot@lakelandtimes.com.
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Reader Comments
Posted: Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Article comment by:
rhinelander
Please have Ms. Olsen and Ms. Running explain how e-mails that were sent to a STATE OWNED computer on state time. Sorry Ms. Olsen they belong to the taxpayers. What are you and Ms. Running hiding? You will have to turn them over eventually. State computer state property, you should pay for all these childish games. Whats a matter with the DA he should have demanded those e-mails, quit wasting our money Ms. Olsen, and Ms. Running.
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