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Speaker 1: Eight five right now. But you have KCD talk station

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Speaker 1: Happy Thursday. Thursday's mean if you're interested in Empower You

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Speaker 1: America Class or Empower You American Classes, you get taken

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Speaker 1: the Power of America Class seven pm thanks to Dan

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Speaker 1: Reagan old fram USA, formerly owner and originator of the

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Speaker 1: Empower Youth Seminar series as always tonight in addition to

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Speaker 1: an amazing seminar on it's kind of like astronomy Tour

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Speaker 1: of the Universe. You are here, You've got to be

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Speaker 1: at the Empower U Seminars Studios three hundred Great Oaks

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Speaker 1: Drive to check this one out. You're gonna get a

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Speaker 1: tour of the entire universe. You stop at the Moon,

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Speaker 1: you go out and you inspect all the planets and

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Speaker 1: apparently like a light speed simulation going out to the Intertellar

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Speaker 1: space to visit the universe and all the galaxies and

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Speaker 1: just appreciate the insanity of how big the universe is.

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Speaker 1: That should be an amazing class with Dan Regas, who's

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Speaker 1: one of the renowned experts on such matters. But you're

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Speaker 1: also going to get Kurt Hartman. I love Kurt Hartman

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Speaker 1: and everything he does. Attorney at the Finny law firm

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Speaker 1: concentrates on commercial and constitutional litigation, as well as public

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Speaker 1: interest litigation. You may have heard his name come up

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Speaker 1: in connection with local government issues. Welcome back, Kurt Hartman.

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Speaker 1: I appreciate you coming on the program again. It's great

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Speaker 1: to hear from you.

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Speaker 2: Sir Brian. Always great to be with you.

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Speaker 1: Sunshine Laws and according to materials, and I'm anxious for

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Speaker 1: you to explain to my listeners at least a little

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Speaker 1: insight into what you're gonna be talking about tonight. They

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Speaker 1: are under attack and it might be more difficult for

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Speaker 1: the general public to get records. There are laws on

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Speaker 1: the books. The problem is it seems to be more

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Speaker 1: theory versus practice. Let me throw this at you, Kurt.

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Speaker 1: I can issue a Freedom of Information Act request. I

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Speaker 1: can issue a request for government documents pursuing to the

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Speaker 1: laws you're going to be talking about, the Sunshine Laws.

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Speaker 1: But quite often those responsible for producing them ignore you,

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Speaker 1: and it goes by the wayside, and you wait weeks

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Speaker 1: and months they have passed the deadline for which to respond.

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Speaker 1: Then it seems to me you almost have to have

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Speaker 1: a bankroll to pay lawyers to go to court to

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Speaker 1: enforce a law. That's on the books that tells them

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Speaker 1: they have the obligation to produce the stuff in the

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Speaker 1: first place. It's gonna get worse.

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Speaker 2: It's gonna get worse, yes, and has gotten worse, uh,

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Speaker 2: you know, by both a little bit because of the

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Speaker 2: General Assembly's amendments to the Public Records Act as well

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Speaker 2: as a few decisions from the House Supreme Court, you know,

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Speaker 2: instead of you know, the Sunshine Laws of their openness transparency. Uh,

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Speaker 2: you know, foundation principle is that your public records are

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Speaker 2: the people's records, and that they belong to the people,

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Speaker 2: and that the public officials are simply trustees or custodians

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Speaker 2: of them for the benefit of the public. But because

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Speaker 2: it's a matter of state will, the General Assembly can

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Speaker 2: put you know, and and they constantly, it seems like

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Speaker 2: each General is something putting more and more exemptions or

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Speaker 2: hurdles or obstacles if you will, uh that favor of

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Speaker 2: the government and undermine transparency. You know, just feel the things.

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Speaker 2: And you know, we're just gonna talk briefly about it

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Speaker 2: tonight as well, because I think this astronomy thing has

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Speaker 2: really got to be the neat part about it about

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Speaker 2: my presentation, but to give you an example. I think

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Speaker 2: one of the things I'm really really disappointed in is

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Speaker 2: just earlier this year they amended to state the Public

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Speaker 2: Records Act with respect to getting your videos from police officers,

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Speaker 2: body cameras or cruiser videos. It used to be used

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Speaker 2: to be able to put in a request and say, hey,

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Speaker 2: I want to get the body camera for this incident

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Speaker 2: or that incident. Right, yeah, you can still get them,

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Speaker 2: but now they have said, you know what a local

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Speaker 2: law enforcement can authorize is authorized to charge you up

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Speaker 2: to seven hundred and fifty dollars for the time and

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Speaker 2: expense it takes to prepare go through redact that video.

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Speaker 2: And so you know, if the average person has an

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Speaker 2: interaction with law enforcement and just says, hey I need

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Speaker 2: to see the video, want that video of my that's

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Speaker 2: stop with the police officers. The department can say, hey,

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Speaker 2: before we do it, you got to pay us x

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Speaker 2: dollars up to seven hundred and fifty that we think

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Speaker 2: it's going to take to get that video ready for you. So,

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Speaker 2: for example, you know the infamous brawl downtown right right,

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Speaker 2: you know there were body cameras. When the priest finally responded,

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Speaker 2: you put a request in and you know before that

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Speaker 2: it was like, hey, we want to charge you for it.

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Speaker 1: Well wait real quickly, right, And I did, and.

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Speaker 2: They did charge charge. They charged the news media when

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Speaker 2: the news even the news media went in for it

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Speaker 2: and they said, hey, in that case, they only charged

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Speaker 2: them like twenty dollars plus or minus because they said, hey,

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Speaker 2: we can do it pretty quickly. But again, it's this

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Speaker 2: principle that hey, these are people's records. You know, this

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Speaker 2: is accountability, this is oversight.

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Speaker 1: Kurt Hartman, let me ask you this. I am free

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Speaker 1: as a citizen to go to the public records that

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Speaker 1: are in the Clerk of Courts office. I can review

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Speaker 1: them there. If I want a copy of them, I

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Speaker 1: just pay to have a copy. May right. It's like

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Speaker 1: the old xerox days. Put a diamond, you got a copy.

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Speaker 1: But I can view them there. Why not just make

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Speaker 1: the damn video available to the public at the police

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Speaker 1: station or at some viewing area. They can look at

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Speaker 1: it there and if they want to take a copy

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Speaker 1: home with them, then let them. But more fundamentally, what's

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Speaker 1: with the redaction thing? If this is a police officer

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Speaker 1: in public doing the public servant's duty, why would I

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Speaker 1: want a redacted video, and upon what basis would they

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Speaker 1: take something out of it?

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Speaker 2: Kurt Well, the redaction and usually what they do on

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Speaker 2: the redactions of videos is they just blow a part

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Speaker 2: of it. It may be somebody giving their social security

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Speaker 2: Usually it's like a social security number. Okay, somebody gives you,

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Speaker 2: I guess your name, your social security number, or they

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Speaker 2: have the police monitor in the vehicles. You know, they're

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Speaker 2: looking at that to run somebody license play or somebody's ID,

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Speaker 2: and the video captures the information on the screen. So

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Speaker 2: that's the predominance of it. So there may be a

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Speaker 2: few statements that are made. There may be some confidential

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Speaker 2: information that you want redactive. So it's not really that

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Speaker 2: bad in terms of redacting the videos, but it's like,

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Speaker 2: you know, the time to go track down videos, try

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Speaker 2: time to review it, the time to listen to it

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Speaker 2: to make sure somebody doesn't tell tell a law enforcement Also,

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Speaker 2: here's my social security number, go you go check me out.

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Speaker 2: They can charge you now the time and their expense

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Speaker 2: for preparing that. So you got you know, something like that,

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Speaker 2: you know, and it's both complete. You know, the video

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Speaker 2: is not only with law enforcement, but if you go

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Speaker 2: to the prosecutors and say hey, I want that video.

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Speaker 2: The prosecutors can also charge you for it. The other

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Speaker 2: other interesting thing was they they the General Assembly put

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Speaker 2: an edition in where they exempted or said hey, you

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Speaker 2: can't get information of our communications members or communications with

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Speaker 2: other members or staff. So when these legislators are saying, hey,

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Speaker 2: dear colleague, please support this legislation, dear colleague, please do

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Speaker 2: this or that, you can't get those in. That's those

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Speaker 2: correspondence until the General Assembly is no longer in session.

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Speaker 2: What's the base thinks for going on while this information

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Speaker 2: is being exchanged amongst members of the General Assembly. Nope,

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Speaker 2: you can't see any of that.

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Speaker 1: Well, it's at the point in time when you really

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Speaker 1: critically need it before decisions are made. I don't want

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Speaker 1: to review something after the fact, after they've already enacted

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Speaker 1: some legislation or done done the work and it's all

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Speaker 1: over with. The real time reporting seems to be necessary

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Speaker 1: for the public goods, so we can help, you know,

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Speaker 1: it will inform us and will allow us to give

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Speaker 1: an opportunity to or elected officials about which direction we

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Speaker 1: want them to go.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, especially when you think about the capital budget,

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Speaker 2: the budget or the breaking budget or the capital budget.

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Speaker 2: You know, who's putting on who's advocating to put this

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Speaker 2: line lineament of you know, a special deal or whatever.

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Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, you can find out about it two

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Speaker 2: years later or a year later after the General Assembly

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Speaker 2: you know is no longer in session.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, oh hey, we just found about about Operation Arctic

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Speaker 1: Frosts that a parent was going on for a whole

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Speaker 1: time under Trump administration, violating everybody's constitutional rights. But it

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Speaker 1: takes time to get out the information. But what the

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Speaker 1: what is the motivation behind this cracking down on publicly

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Speaker 1: available information? What's driving this? Because it's going the opposite direction, Kurt,

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Speaker 1: from where I would want it to go, because I'm

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Speaker 1: in favor of giving us everything that we want, since

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Speaker 1: we're paying for all the work that they do and

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Speaker 1: they're impacting our lives every day.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I just think I think it is more deference,

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Speaker 2: you know, to to the government. That government, you know,

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Speaker 2: and the government at the Prostitutors Association or you know,

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Speaker 2: complain about all we're getting in and data with these

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Speaker 2: public records requests. You're distracting quote unquote distracting us from

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Speaker 2: doing our job. Well, part of their job is getting

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Speaker 2: information to the public. And I think that they've developed

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Speaker 2: this lack of appreciation. You know, then that is part

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Speaker 2: of their job. Well and so and so, and the

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Speaker 2: general Assembly, you know, reacts says, okay, fine, we'll help

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Speaker 2: you here. You know. It's almost a death of a

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Speaker 2: thousand cuts. Yes, you know, okay, this may not be

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Speaker 2: a big thing. That may not be a big thing,

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Speaker 2: you know. I mean, you know. Another thing they exempt

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Speaker 2: now are the work schedules, you know from what they

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Speaker 2: call is what they call designated public workers, but essentially

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Speaker 2: it's law enforcement officers, you know, et cetera. You know,

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Speaker 2: And I'll tell you I've done requests before to say, hey,

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Speaker 2: I'd like to see, you know, the schedule for who

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Speaker 2: is on duty, you know, two weeks ago or five

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Speaker 2: weeks ago. That's now, ZEMP. You can't get the work

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Speaker 2: schedules for law enforcement huh. You know, I mean I

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Speaker 2: can understand a prospectively, you know, something going forward. I

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Speaker 2: don't want to see who's on duty next week.

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Speaker 1: Right right, right right. And these trying times we live

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Speaker 1: in the dosing. The whole idea of iman target law

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Speaker 1: enforcement officers, specific ones, perhaps targeted knowing where they're going

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Speaker 1: to be in at what time. It's a little bit

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Speaker 1: or well and creepy that that might be readily available.

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Speaker 1: And I understand around the margins, but not a broad

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Speaker 1: brush approach to this, just saying no, you cannot have

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Speaker 1: that under any circumstances, and you cannot.

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Speaker 2: Have who was on duty four weeks ago.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, that doesn't make any sense either because that

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Speaker 1: could be critical information.

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Speaker 2: But again it's this react I think it's reactionary to

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Speaker 2: special interest within the government, you know, I mean, but

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Speaker 2: if you think about it, and it's amazing. You know,

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Speaker 2: there are all these lobbying type organizations, right yeah, and

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Speaker 2: some of them are paid for by taxpayer dollars. You know,

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Speaker 2: the Ohio Municipal League, the Ohio Taxpayer Association, Prosecutors Association.

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Speaker 2: You know, they are all lobbying type groups up in

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Speaker 2: Columbus that are formed and organized and consist of the

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Speaker 2: government officials. And it's being paid for by our tax dollars.

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Speaker 2: So you have our tax dollars lobbying to undermine you know,

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Speaker 2: the public interest and the general public. We're paying, we're

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Speaker 2: paying to be lobbying against. But you know, nobody pays

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Speaker 2: to lobby for the individuals.

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Speaker 1: Well, then there's the other component of kind of the

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Speaker 1: springboard for our conversation on this. There are on the

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Speaker 1: books which allow us to have these records. You're pointing

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Speaker 1: that out. They're changing them to make it more difficult. Fine,

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Speaker 1: But when they don't even comply with the law on

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Speaker 1: the book in any form, and you got to go

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Speaker 1: to court to get them to an issue there to

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Speaker 1: produce the documents you've asked for, they're inviting the public,

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Speaker 1: the taxpayer dollars, to have to pay for litigation expenses

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Speaker 1: on their side of the ledger because they refuse to

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Speaker 1: do the job they're supposed to do it hand over

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Speaker 1: the information. Shouldn't there be some sort of harsher harsher

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Speaker 1: penalty for those who refuse? How do you how do

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Speaker 1: you bring about compliance without litigation? Kurt?

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Speaker 2: In a certain sense, you can't, you know, I mean, yeah,

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Speaker 2: the public office is what I'm slow wrong. I mean

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Speaker 2: you talked about, you know, going down to the Clerk

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Speaker 2: of Court's office. Right, Hey, I want to go see

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Speaker 2: a court record, I can just go down there, get

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Speaker 2: to look at it, and if I want a copy,

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Speaker 2: give me a copy. I've got a lawsuit over that case.

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Speaker 2: I'm actually suing the Hamilton County Clerk of Courts because

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Speaker 2: their office refuse to provide and allow the inspection. Just

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Speaker 2: somebody to go in and see a court case. You know.

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Speaker 2: That's because and dealt with the if you remember when

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Speaker 2: the city of Cincinnati decided they wanted to you know,

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Speaker 2: charge criminally. You know the victim, the guy, the.

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Speaker 1: Guy who got beaten up the Russian.

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Speaker 2: Yeah right, the Russian go down, say hey, we want

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Speaker 2: to see that filing. What did the city file? And

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Speaker 2: the clerk of course was no, we're not going to

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Speaker 2: let you see it. There's a motion to seal that case.

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Speaker 2: So until the judge decides, well what about the judge

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Speaker 2: decided to seal it or not, didn't matter. We're there

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Speaker 2: saying we want to inspect it. They said no, So

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Speaker 2: we had to sue it. We're suing them over and

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Speaker 2: we've got litigation going over there. There's something that's basically

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Speaker 2: as a court record, and it's just this attitude, you know,

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Speaker 2: and it's not a partisan attitude. I think you get

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Speaker 2: it from both sides of the whisle. Oh yeah, And

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Speaker 2: so you know you're right if the option is the litigation.

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Speaker 2: The thing is, you know you talk about hiring attorneys,

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Speaker 2: and you got to hire attorneys. Now, if you win

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Speaker 2: the court, can you know, usually will will award you

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Speaker 2: your attorney fees or at least some of your attorney fees.

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Speaker 2: That seems to be the option they given. That's the

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Speaker 2: only option you really have. I mean, you know, the

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Speaker 2: concept of the philosophy is, you know, the remedy is elections.

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Speaker 2: You know, if somebody is doing something, not performing their

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Speaker 2: public office right or appropriate, the remedy is vote them

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Speaker 2: out at the next election. But I hate to say,

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Speaker 2: I mean, if Tuesday Todd is anything, it's like, you know,

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Speaker 2: the people will just but you know, a majority of them,

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Speaker 2: it appears in the city of Cincinnati will just follow

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Speaker 2: follow sheeplex whatever. You know, Yeah, it's the Democrats slate card.

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Speaker 2: I'll just blindly voted and this, you know.

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Speaker 1: But on Tuesday, You're right, I understand that, understand that,

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Speaker 1: and that quite often is the only remedy we were

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Speaker 1: left with in spite of the fact that it doesn't

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Speaker 1: always work to our advantage. But the world keeps going on.

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Speaker 1: Litigation continues. These issues can't wait for elections to resolve themselves.

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Speaker 1: They have an obligation to produce information. You need it

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Speaker 1: now as a part of maybe the defense of your

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Speaker 1: client or some other issue in a civil litigation. Give

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Speaker 1: us the damn information, and.

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Speaker 2: You know you try it, but you know, you know,

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Speaker 2: there was one of the decisions. Chief Justice Kennedy said,

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Speaker 2: you know, sometimes when you get the information is just

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Speaker 2: as important as what the information is. But unfortunately, the

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Speaker 2: next time I see the Chief Justice, I'm going to

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Speaker 2: kind of you know, vendor air a little bit. You

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Speaker 2: follow these lawsuits at the Supreme Court to get these records,

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Speaker 2: it takes them a year to issue.

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Speaker 1: Decision exactly exactly.

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Speaker 2: You know, and that doesn't do any good for anybody either.

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Speaker 2: You know. It just seems the decisions coming out from

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Speaker 2: the court making longer than they have historically and definitely

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Speaker 2: longer than they should. And so, yeah, you get your

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Speaker 2: victory at the end of the day, You get your

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Speaker 2: victory a year from now saying yeah, you are entitled

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Speaker 2: to those records. But then but then you turn around

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Speaker 2: the next stage time that the issue, similar issue arises.

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Speaker 2: The governments they know they can slow roll you on

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Speaker 2: public records.

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Speaker 1: Happens time and time.

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Speaker 2: I saw that a lot with the city of something else.

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Speaker 2: You know, I've got numerous requests into the City of

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Speaker 2: Cincinnati on behalf of clients city slow rolls we're looking at.

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Speaker 2: We've got to review it. I mean, even some basic records.

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Speaker 1: Well, this is this is not just a local or

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Speaker 1: stay phenomenon. This happens all the time in the federal

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Speaker 1: government level, perhaps even more. I've had Congressman Weinstrop in

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Speaker 1: here talking to you know, he's in he's in some

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Speaker 1: meeting or hearing about some issue, and he asks the

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Speaker 1: intelligence community or whoever's in front of him for the information.

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Speaker 1: They basically say, no, we're not going to give.

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Speaker 2: It to you.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is he's on behalf of the American taxpayers,

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Speaker 1: trying to get to the bottom of answers and questions.

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Speaker 1: The information is out there, and they blanket just say basically,

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Speaker 1: go to hell, I'm not gonna give it to you.

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Speaker 1: This is the world we live in. And I find

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Speaker 1: that as offensive as it can possibly be. Kurt, is

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Speaker 1: this done and baked into the cake? Or do we

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Speaker 1: have time to go and get in touch with our

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Speaker 1: elected officials? Where are we with in terms of these

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Speaker 1: open records and open Meetings Act reforms.

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Speaker 2: Well, those reforms have already gone in you know, I mean,

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Speaker 2: I know in terms of restricting the General Assembly in

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Speaker 2: terms of that, you know, being able to charge up

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Speaker 2: to seven hundred and fifty dollars. You know from videos.

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Speaker 2: I knew the newspaper Association and actually very critical of it.

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Speaker 2: You know, I was crying it while was being considered.

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Speaker 2: But that those are those arguments apparently set on death fears. Well,

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Speaker 2: you know, at the end of the day, the problem,

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Speaker 2: I think the General Assembly realizes this is not the

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Speaker 2: trans this aspect of openness and transparency is not a

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Speaker 2: priority for voters. You know, voters are more going to

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Speaker 2: be more interested than their public safety, the economy, their taxes.

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Speaker 2: You know, if this was on a pecking motor list,

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Speaker 2: it's going to be very low on that list.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a weed dweller issue, Kurt, I'll concede. But

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Speaker 1: that's why we have you to look out for our

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Speaker 1: best interest and keep looking at where the weeds are

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Speaker 1: and what the problems are with them. You know, it's

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Speaker 1: kind of funny and comical. It's adding insult to injury

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Speaker 1: seven hundred and fifty bucks. That's after you litigate and

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Speaker 1: win the litigation to get them to produce the documents.

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Speaker 1: Then you're going to be whacked with a seven hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty dollars charge right.

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Speaker 2: Well, actually, actually probab probably wouldn't have a case until

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Speaker 2: you say, here's my money.

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Speaker 1: Okay.

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Speaker 2: They don't even have to prepare the video until you

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Speaker 2: pay whatever their estimate is that it's going to cost

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Speaker 2: pay up front.

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Speaker 1: We will get around to it sometime, maybe a year

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Speaker 1: from now. Kurt Hartman is gonna be talking all about

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Speaker 1: this tonight in the Take twenty segment of the Empower

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Speaker 1: Youth Seminar, which will include a fascinating tour of the universe.

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Speaker 1: Takes place at three hundred Great Oaks Drive in studio

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Speaker 1: or you can log in from home, but I think

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Speaker 1: you will certainly benefit from being there for the fascinating

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Speaker 1: tour of the universe, and of course you can ask

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Speaker 1: Greg our Kurt a few questions. Kurt, thank you so

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Speaker 1: much for your time this morning and for taking on

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Speaker 1: this task tonight. I hope you have a really well

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Speaker 1: attended seminar tonight.

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Speaker 2: Great. Thank you, Brian.

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Speaker 1: Keep up your great work brother, You're really helping out