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Sunday, June 14, 2009
Ind. Gov't. - "Was Kalispell, Montanna's prospective new city manager, Matt McKillip, reluctant to produce public information while he was mayor of Kokomo, Ind.?"
Remember all the ILB entries in 2006 about a high school student who had to go to court to prevail in an open records fight with Kokomo's then- Mayor Matt McKillip?
Now read this story published June 11th in the Daily Inter Lake, "Northwest Montana's News Source." Reporter John Stang writes:
Was Kalispell's prospective new city manager, Matt McKillip, reluctant to produce public information while he was mayor of Kokomo, Ind.?The Kokomo Tribune newspaper says yes.
McKillip says no.
When the Kalispell City Council interviewed the five finalists for city manager on June 3, it asked each candidate about promoting transparency in the local government.
All five gave very pro-transparency answers.
McKillip told the Kalispell council that he helped improve city government openness in Kokomo.
However from 2005 to 2007, the Kokomo paper wrote several stories about clashing with him and his administration on obtaining public records. The Tribune also wrote several times about McKillip not returning numerous phone calls for comments and elaborations.
In a Saturday interview, McKillip said he returned phone calls and produced public records in a timely fashion —and that some delays in providing information to the Tribune were due to the Kokomo city attorney's decisions.
"I got along well with the Tribune," McKillip said — except for reporter Scott Smith, who covers the Kokomo city government. McKillip described Smith's work as 'very inaccurate reporting, very biased reporting."
Tribune managing editor Jeff Kovaleski said Smith is an experienced, veteran reporter. ""We stand by his reporting and his accuracy, and we wish Matt all our best wishes in his future endeavors." * * *
The city lost a 2005-06 open-records legal battle over a teenage boy seeking a list of e-mail addresses that received the city's electronic newsletters.
The high school student, Ryan Nees, told the Tribune he wanted to compare the city's list with a list of e-mail addresses that receive McKillip's political e-mails — after receiving such a political e-mail.
But on Saturday, McKillip said that Nees wanted to use the requested list for the boy's own political e-mails. "Overwhelmingly, the public told us not to share the list," McKillip said.
The Tribune reported the city administration told Nees it would not provide him such a list, but he could hand-copy it. The boy filed a lawsuit in the county circuit court — and won. The city attorney decided not to appeal.
The newspaper reported the city spent $23,000 defending itself and had to pay an additional $11,000 for Nees' attorney fees.
McKillip said if he could do it over, he would have pushed for an appeal —believing his side would have won.
McKillip lost a 2005-06 dispute with the Indiana State Public Access Counselor's Office over charging $1 per page to photocopy city documents when the Kokomo City Council reduced the charge to 25 cents a page.
McKillip argued in 2006 that the $1-per-page fee was needed to cover copying labor costs, the Tribune reported. In 2005, the Tribune obtained an informal opinion from the state's public access counselor's office that $1 per page was excessive. The paper reported most county agencies charged 20 cents a page.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 14, 2009 01:38 PM
Posted to Indiana Government