Oklahoma City won’t release worker’s name in federal grant investigation
BRYAN DEAN
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Published: August 28, 2009
Oklahoma City continues to refuse to release the name of one of two employees placed on administrative leave during an investigation of the management of federal grant funds.
City officials said Monday that the director of the city’s Weed and Seed program,
Ed Martin, was put on administrative leave while police investigate potential problems with the management of grants in the program. A second employee was put on administrative leave a day later. City officials did not release the second employees name and said Martin’s name also should not have been released.
Weed and Seed is a federal program allowing cities to get grant money to increase police enforcement in high crime areas and offer social programs to build up the neighborhoods in those areas.
City officials maintain the names are not a matter of public record because administrative leave is not a final disciplinary action as defined by the state’s open records law.
Administrative leave isn’t always a secret, however. City police routinely release the names of police officers put on administrative leave after being involved in a shooting.
"There is a significant difference between an officer-involved shooting and a personnel investigation,” assistant city attorney
Richard Smith said.
The city has previously refused to release documents related to use-of-force incidents, including officer-involved shootings, saying they are related to personnel investigations.
"Initially, we know that an officer has been involved in an officer-involved shooting,” Smith said. "The officer’s name is released based upon the fact of that knowledge.”
Smith said an employee targeted by a personnel investigation has due process rights under the
U.S. Constitution, therefore such names are not released until hearings have been held and a final disciplinary action is taken.
"The whole problem is that employees have some rights here,” Smith said. "We have to protect those rights in addition to the public’s need to know.”
Joey Senat, an
Oklahoma State University journalism professor and open government expert, said Smith’s explanation is "nonsense.”
"Administrative leave is administrative leave,” Senat said.
"Their logic doesn’t make sense. They know this person is involved with the management of the grants just as they know an officer is involved in a shooting.”
Senat said there is no exemption in the
Oklahoma Open Records Act allowing governments to keep information secret to protect employees from public scrutiny.
The city has also refused to release Martin’s birth date, claiming it is "personal information within driver records,” and that releasing the information would be an "unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
Senat said birth dates are listed on state voter records and several other public documents, indicating they don’t qualify as an invasion of privacy. He said the argument that they are driver records is absurd and a misinterpretation of the law.
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