Fighting City Hall, II
Margaret Banks is continuing to pursue the City Council's reasoning behind releasing more information on the investigation of the police assault allegations. Along the way, a couple council members have offered unsolicited opinions about the status of our lawsuit.
Goldie Wells requested we drop it. Robbie Perkins suggested we pursue it and let the courts decide once and for all what is protected personnel information. (He also said we were making too big of a deal out of it and wasting people's time.)
I wouldn't suggest our lawsuit had anything to do with the council's decision. I prefer to think that the members decided to do the right thing for the right reasons.
For the record, we'll make a decision later on, but I'm inclined to drop the suit. We got the information we were seeking.
Comments (4)
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John, you have not answered my question, and you appear to have deleted a comment (asking the same question - placed here a short time ago).
What law firm/lawyer is representing you? It's a simple question . . . certainly not confidential. And your failure to answer certainly speaks to transparency.
Posted on December 31, 2007 10:02 AM
I don't know but I kinda like Robbie's take on the situation.
Let the court's decide, once and for all, what is and what is not personnel information.
If not, we will continue the same bickering over, and over, and over again in the future. The taxpayers (who the city government/GPD work for) have a right to know. WE PAY THE BILLS!
If it had been me, my name, address, allegations, time, place, what I was wearing, and what cologne I had on would be all over the front page of the N&R.
Why should city employees be treated any different because of personnel laws?
I am employed somewhere so why doesn't my name get culled from the media because of personnel laws?
I know it's costly to proceed with a lawsuit, but the N&R could be setting a standard that could be used for years to come.
I say "Go for it."
Posted on December 31, 2007 10:04 AM
The state law is very clear on this. The public record information from the police report in a criminal investigation trumps the personnel privacy protections, The items that are a public record in a criminal investigation must be released regardless if any of the persons are city employees, The State expert on these laws, David Lawrence at the UNC School of Government makes this very clear in his book on public records law. There was no need for the Greensboro Council to use the "maintaining public confidence" section of the personnel law to release this information, Since they had referred the complaint to their criminal division, the City should have released the information, just like they would have to if the assault did not involve any city employees.
Posted on December 31, 2007 10:05 AM
Helms, Mulliss & Wicker, Mary. It's no secret. It's on the filing which we posted online.
Posted on December 31, 2007 10:08 AM