The Daily Agenda: Public records stay "public," for now

County Attorney wants stricter laws ... Supervisors balk ... The tamale lady could be making a comeback.

Pima County supervisors backed away from a potentially democracy-hindering proposal during Tuesday’s meeting, opting to pull an item from their 2024 Legislative Agenda after the meeting’s public comment session.

The item was a proposed law that Pima County Attorney Laura Conover wants the state Legislature to pass that would establish “reasonable boundaries around public records requests while maintaining a high level of transparency and accountability,” as she put it in a recent memo to the board of supervisors.

That doesn’t sound too bad... until you dig into it.

Conover wants every public agency to be able to charge $46 for each hour of video reviewed by officials. Right now, that only applies to law enforcement agencies like the sheriff’s department. Conover also wants to give officials the authority to sue for “vexatious or frivolous” records requests. Officials would abuse that authority from the get-go. All they would have to do is deny the request, say it’s frivolous, and then take a news outlet to court.

Those moves, and others she proposed, would immediately limit the public’s access to public records, and price us out of many records requests. If the proposals became state law, the only news outlets that could afford to pay for records would be the one or two biggest in the state. Even then, the newspaper business is starving, so reporters would certainly be pulling fewer records.

But if everybody became a paid subscriber, we could file enough records requests to annoy every official in Arizona!

Supervisors seemed poised to support the proposal, but after hearing from Conover’s self-proclaimed nemesis and the office’s former chief criminal deputy, supervisors opted to stay out of what David Berkman claimed was a personal issue between the two lawyers. We wrote about the dispute between Conover and Berkman a few weeks ago, which stems from public records request in the Louis Taylor case, in case you need a refresher.

We noted at the time that Conover claimed Berkman was responsible for 10% of all the records requests filed with her office, which is a lot, if that’s accurate. But there’s nothing illegal about it. Sometimes it takes a lot of requests to get what you’re looking for.

And fulfilling records requests is not some “extra” thing agencies have to do, instead of their real jobs. It is a key component of their real job.

At the board’s Tuesday meeting, Supervisor Rex Scott asked to pull the item after Berkman told supervisors that he thought the proposed restrictions were aimed at him.

“I have a feeling that this whole matter with the public records may be a response to a public records request that I made and lawsuit I filed,” Berkman said. “If she had complied, it wouldn’t have cost the county a nickel. It would have taken about 10 or 15 hours to get the documents and that would have been the end of it.”

When it came time to discuss the legislative agenda, Scott said he didn’t want the board to be “in the middle” of the dispute. And Conover is a member of law enforcement organizations that can bring the issue to the Legislature without involving the board of supervisors, Scott noted.

“He sees this proposal as retributive. I don’t think that the board and the county, as part of our legislative program, should get involved in whatever is occurring between the current county attorney and the former deputy county attorney,” Scott said.

Chief Civil Deputy County Attorney Sam Brown told the board the proposed changes to state law were not related to Berkman. The time-consuming process of redacting police body-camera footage and searching through emails, texts, and other means of communication are a long-running issue at the County Attorney’s Office, he said.

“This has nothing to do with one requester,” Brown said. “This is an issue that has been on the radar of the county and the county attorney for many, many years ahead of this individual’s case.”

Scott made clear he didn’t have any reason to doubt what Brown said. Scott just didn’t want to put the county in an awkward position.

We recognize gathering records can be time-consuming, as Brown noted. But it’s worth noting the county attorney didn’t include the issue in the county’s legislative agendas for 2022 or 2023.

Public records are an essential tool for reporters, not to mention anyone who’s the victim of a crime or accused of one. Caitlin, for example, has used public records to uncover serious misdeeds by law enforcement officers and public officials and reveal systemic issues in the University of Arizona’s handling of complaints of violence within the athletic department.

Her public records-based reporting has also saved the public money. In 2015, she reported on a cafe inside sheriff department headquarters that was being operated by the relative of a high-ranking official, rent-free and without a contract. Public records requests also revealed that the department had illegally spent tens-of-thousands of dollars in federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (also called RICO) funds for restaurant equipment. The funds are meant to be used for crime-prevention and crime-fighting purposes.

Caitlin’s reporting prompted an FBI investigation into the department, which revealed 20 years and $250,000 in illegal spending and led to the indictment (and subsequent conviction) of former Chief Deputy Chris Radtke.

Instead of lobbying for lawmakers to limit access to public records, Conover should focus on doing her real job — which includes providing public records in a prompt and timely manner.

Catching some shuteye: The National Institutes of Health have awarded a $4 million grant to University of Arizona researchers in the college of public health to focus on behavioral interventions to improve firefighter sleep and recovery, UANews reports. Nearly half of career firefighters report poor sleep quality or short sleep, and about 37% develop sleep disorders like insomnia, sleep apnea or shift work disorder. Researchers will work with 20 fire agencies across the state to “evaluate a flexible, personalized sleep health intervention that can be administered in real-world situations.”

Bring on tamale season: Gov. Katie Hobbs has reversed course, saying she’ll sign legislation to legalize the practice of selling home-cooked foods on the street when the legislative session resumes, Capitol Media Services’ Howard Fischer reports. Arizona Daily Star. Hobbs vetoed a measure to do just this earlier this year, and can’t say what she wants in the new version in order for her to sign off. The one thing she has committed to is that she won’t require that health inspectors be allowed to make unscheduled visits to home kitchens.

Questionable behavior: A new report from two human rights groups shows that reports of violations by Customs and Border Protection officers and Border Patrol agents against migrants often go unchecked, KJZZ’s Fronteras Desk’s Alisa Reznick reports. The report, from the Washington Office on Latin America and the Nogales-based aid group Kino Border Initiative, details a years-long tally of human rights abuses. The initiative said its been documenting various rights abuses and violations since 2015, including sexual harassment, intimidation and unauthorized use of force against migrants. Report co-author Zoe Martens said the group filed 78 complaints between 2020 and 2022, but only two led to policy changes or disciplinary action. 

Going to the dogs: Pima County is hosting a pair of pool parties exclusively for dogs over the next two weekends, ThisIsTucson’s Gloria Knott reports. The parties, called Pupapoolooza, are free to attend, but registration is required. The first is this Saturday at the Picture Rocks Pool. The second is Saturday, Aug. 19 at the Kino Pool.

Dogs cost money and Caitlin and Curt both have several rescue dogs. Help us keep our pups happy!

Last ditch effort: A trio of organizations is launching a bid to put abortion rights in the Arizona Constitution, Fischer reports. NARAL Arizona, Planned Parenthood and Healthcare rising announced the move Tuesday, in an effort to provide “the ultimate backstop” to keep abortion legal, regardless of what the Arizona Supreme Court is expected to rule later this year. As a constitutional amendment, it also would block future legislative efforts to enact restrictions. Backers have until July 3 to gather 348,000 valid signatures, but given the normal rate of disqualifications and anticipated legal challenges, 500,000 is a more realistic goal.

Rio Rico rezoning still on the table: Santa Cruz County residents turned out in force last week to oppose to a potential new development in Rio Rico, the Nogales International’s Angela Gervasi reports. While a prominent landowner recently withdrew two applications to rezone 3,550 acres of land, South32, the mining company behind the Hermosa Project in the Patagonia Mountains, is considering its own separate development. The plans would include a remote operating center and a manganese processing facility.

“They have said they have other places they can explore,” resident Pamela Pesqueira said. “Well, let them go and explore those, and leave us alone.”

53: The number of days in a row the Tucson area saw 100-plus degree days. The streak was broken on Tuesday when the high temperature only got to a brisk 99 degrees.