There's more on the shakeup at the Department of Kentucky State Police following a recent spate of shocking revelations about the law enforcement agency.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/6094075002
KSP has hired an open records troubleshooter — my characterization, not KSP's — in response to revelations of flagrant open records abuse — and the resulting payment of attorneys' fees and cost at taxpayer expense — as well as growing public mistrust.
Effective immediately, Michelle Harrison — a 17 year assistant attorney general, open records and open meetings veteran, and merit employee — will leave the OAG to join KSP as that newly appointed nonmerit "troubleshooter."
She leaves a newly restructured Open Records and Meetings Division — within the OAG's Office of Civil and Environmental Law — whose impressive name belies the fact that it now consists of two members — one an experienced merit staffer and the other neither experienced nor merit.
Harrison originally joined the attorney general's open records and open meetings two person merit staff during Ben Chandler's administration. She was hired as a backup decision writer following an existing member's serious illness/absence.
Chandler had committed to compliance with statutory deadlines for issuance of open records and open meetings decisions in his first bid for attorney general. He expanded the merit staff to fulfill his pledge — and in recognition of the nearly daily deadlines the staff faced —but with an eye to preserving a measure of merit staff independence and autonomy.
In his second term, Attorney General Jack Conway abandoned these commitments, delaying release of decisions "in review" for months at a time and — with increasing and frustrating frequency — modifying the decisions written by his merit staff. Also with increasing frequency, merit staff declined to sign these legally indefensible decisions.
This culminated in the subsequently repudiated 2015 open records decision issued on Conway's last day in office declaring that communications about public business conducted by public employees and officials on private servers and devices did not constitute public records under the open records law and were not subject to public inspection.
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/columnists/2018/04/02/ken…
Sadly, these problems persisted into the first six months of the administration of Conway's successor, Andy Beshear.
In August, 2016, the office's 25 year open records and open meetings veteran and most experienced merit staffer retired "under considerable duress," expressing grave concerns for the future of Kentucky's open government law in an administration that had not learned from the mistakes of the immediate past.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/…
To his credit, Beshear did learn from the negative response to this news. With the exception of the ill-advised introduction of an inexperienced nonmerit staffer — whose poorly reasoned open records and open meetings decisions haunt us to this day — the open records and meetings laws experienced a renaissance and were mostly back on track for the remaining three and a half years of Beshear's term.
Also to his credit, Beshear intervened in the University of Kentucky v The Kernel case — and other cases like it — to seek clarification of his staff's statutory authority to conduct confidential review of disputed public records (which UK and other universities openly defied). This was a first for Kentucky attorneys general.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wlwt.com/amp/article/ag-intervenes-in-…
Along with other unwelcome changes, current Attorney General Danial Cameron withdrew from these open records cases in an act that became emblematic of his obvious disregard for the work of his predecessors, the body of internal agency authority that had evolved over the past forty-plus years, and Kentucky's open government laws.
https://wkuherald.com/news/attorney-general-intervening-complaint-remov…
https://www.facebook.com/419650175248377/posts/789149491631775/?d=n
I believe that Harrison is running from these destructive changes in the OAG — as well as a stagnant salary that has necessitated a second job at Walmart since 2016 — as much as she is running to KSP as the newly appointed open records "troubleshooter."
What lies ahead for Harrison is a daunting challenge. She understands this, but also knows that she has the support of the Justice Cabinet and Governor — if not a recalcitrant KSP bureaucracy where attorneys have traditionally been subordinated to sworn officers and their guidance ignored.
Can Harrison right the open records ship of state at KSP? Time alone will tell. Other changes at KSP — including the resignation of Commissioner Rodney Brewer and reassignment of the KSP spokesperson — suggest that the Beshear administration means business.
Harrison's position at KSP is nonmerit. The independence to effect meaningful change may not be available to her. And what will become of the position under future administrations?
The Kentucky Open Government Coalition nevertheless welcomes this news as the Commonwealth's laws come under increasing assault from the OAG and legislature and face a major challenge in the Kentucky Supreme Court in UK v The Kernel — a case whose implications go far beyond the university's attempted coverup of a sexually predatory professor.
https://www.kentucky.com/opinion/op-ed/article227845064.html?fbclid=IwA…
https://www.facebook.com/1846598708/posts/10214451568723465/?d=n
It is a positive step by the Beshear administration in these negative times and one that other law enforcement agencies — like the Louisville Metro Police Department — should follow.
