County Resources: Electioneering?
What & Why
We were given a screenprint of a portion of a recent email from County Judge Jim Baker that caused us to question his appropriate use of county resources.
On October 24, 2018 Judge Baker sent an email using his Faulkner County email address to Don Bradley (and copied to many other individuals); the email’s subject is “Re: RELEASE: President Signs Water Infrastructure Law that Includes Boozman Initiative.” Judge Baker’s one-line reply reads:
This is great, right now I am trying to get votes for re elect to help on these issues. Please contact all you can to go vote,…..I need it,
We understand that Arkansas law prohibits the use of official resources for campaign or political purposes.
FOIA Request
In order to verify the screenprint, on October 25, 2018 we emailed a FOIA request to Judge Baker asking for “all email, outbound and incoming addressed to or from [email protected] for the period August 1, 2018 to October 25, 2018.”
Response
At the end of the work day on Tuesday, 10/30/18 — after 3 business days had passed from our FOIA filing with no response from the County — we contacted County Attorney David Hogue. Hogue reported that Judge Baker considered the requested emails to be under his personal control, and that Baker declined to release them per our FOIA request.
We understand that withholding public records is in direct conflict with the Arkansas FOIA law. Neither did the County honor the 3-day period allowed by law for response.
Lawsuit Filed
After contacting legal counsel, we filed a lawsuit in Circuit Court on Wednesday, 10/31/18. We are requesting an immediate hearing and that Judge Baker be compelled to produce the public records we have requested.
Several things happened on Thursday, 11/1/18:
♦ We began receiving the requested emails from Judge Baker.
♦ The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette published “Faulkner County judge faces lawsuit over emails.”
♦ We learned that the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette had also FOIA’d the Judge for the emails. However — in contrast to the County’s non-response to our FOIA — the newspaper actually did receive the requested emails.
Accordingly, our attorney — Joey McCutchen of Ft. Smith — recommended we pursue a criminal misdemeanor charge against Judge Baker for what he called “the most egregious FOIA violation yet” because the County sent the emails to the newspaper, but did not respond to our FOIA within the legal timeframe.
♦ We learned that the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette had also sent a FOIA for similar emails to Damon Edwards, Judge Baker’s election opponent (who is also a current County employee). We have no information as to why the Democrat-Gazette requested Edwards’ emails.
♦ Joey McCutchen was interviewed on 101.1 FM The Answer’s Dave Elswick radio show about the County’s lack of appropriate response and our lawsuit.
We decided not to file criminal FOIA charges against Judge Baker; our interest lies in transparency. We chose, instead, to pursue an Order from the Judge that documents the County’s failure to comply with the FOIA and orders the County to pay our legal fees and costs.
We obtained our signed Order on Friday, 11/2/18, and The Democrat-Gazette published a followup story: “Faulkner County Judge releases emails after suit filed.”
Once we receive the requested emails we will review and report on our findings.
Also it is in the county personnel handbook that you cannot campaign on County time. But of course that office doesn’t abide by county policy, just as they didn’t follow the sexual harassment policy in the OEM situation.
Oh there’s plenty of on duty campaigning going on in ALL of those county offices. This isn’t something localized to the county judges office. I’ve received campaign signs numerous times right out of county vehicles. The issue here is that Baker is a Democrat and most of these “republicans” believe their party is above this.