In an article published in today's Lexington Herald-Leader, reporter Jack Brammer examines the Kentucky Open Government Coalition's role in a recent lawsuit—one of three—challenging public agency denial of open records requests for communications relating to public business exchanged by public officials on private devices to evade the Kentucky open records and open meetings laws.

As the article notes, the Coalition is represented in this case by Kentucky's leading open records advocates, Jon Fleischaker, Michael Abate, and William Adams, to whom all credit is due.

Brammer writes:

"On August 10, the Kentucky Open Government Coalition asked in an open records request for emails and text messages from several Fish and Wildlife commissioners and said the request was 'not limited' to communications that took place on government-owned email accounts and cell phones.

"The only records to be exempt, said the coalition, were those 'of a purely personal nature unrelated to any governmental function.'

[Relying on an open records decision —issued by Attorney General Daniel Cameron several weeks before — that involved the same records, "[t]he commission ultimately said it was not producing any emails contained solely on commissioners' personal devices or email accounts. It claimed that such records were not owned by the state and are not public records.

"The non-profit says the Open Records Act broadly defines 'public record' to mean all documentation 'prepared, owned, used, in the possession of or retained by a public agency.'

"It argues that emails and text messages between fish and wildlife commissioners about the agency's business are public records because they were prepared and used by commission members, regardless of where they are stored.

"The non-profit contends that it is entitled to seek injunctive and other unspecified relief from the commission's actions, as well as attorney fees. It asks for a quick court ruling and is represented by attorneys Jon L. Fleischaker, Michael P. Abate and William R. Adams of the Louisville law firm of Kaplan Johnson Abate & Bird.

"'If affirmed by this court, the commission's interpretation will gut the Open Records Act and provide a road map for public officials to shield all manner of things from the citizens they serve,' said the non-profit.

"Neither Cameron nor Karl Clinard, chairman of the fish and wildlife commission's governing board, responded to requests for comment about the lawsuit."