You may not realize it but you, as a Wyoming citizen, won a landmark court victory the other day. The Wyoming Department of Education (WDE) and its leadership were slapped down hard before the bar of justice for trying to keep secrets from us.
In a scathing decision, district judge Steven Sharpe reamed the education bureaucrats and their leader, former state Superintendent of Public Instruction Brian Schroeder, for lying about spending public money on a private political event. Schroeder and his co-defendants were also assessed minimal dollar fines, but we’ll get to that later.
Here in Wyoming, we are accustomed to being able to see everything for miles around us. There are damn few skyscrapers to block our view.
There should likewise be damn little that blocks our view about what our government is doing. That is why the Wyoming Public Records Act (WPRA) is on the books. Everyone should know that law, and know how to use it when our elected or appointed officials try to get away with sneaky, shady bullshit.
Consider the WPRA the best tool in the citizen’s toolkit to use when government tries to lie to us about what it is doing. Keep that tool handy, well-oiled and sharp.
To recap the controversy: Schroeder decided to host a political rally in Cheyenne with the organization No Left Turn in Education, and enlisted Kathy Scigliano, handmaiden for the Laramie County Moms for Liberty, to recruit attendees. Disregarding the fact that the political rally was outside the purview of his department, Schroeder ordered that the WDE pay for travel and other arrangement for the event.
Plaintiffs in the case that came before Judge Sharpe, George Powers and Rodger McDaniel, got wind of the plans and filed a request for records pertaining thereto through the WPRA.
Schroeder and his subordinates lied about the existence of such records, withheld information and generally obfuscated in an attempt to conceal from the public the fact that state money was illegally spent to organize and conduct this rally.
Lengthy legal gymnastics and several judicial hearings ensued, with the end result being Sharpe’s decision that Schroeder et al violated the Wyoming Public Records Act, operated in bad faith, lied to the public and tried to hide their skullduggery.
Aside from the humiliation of having their greasiness publicly exposed from the bench, the defendants were fined from a hundred to seven hundred bucks each. I consider these fines paltry and inadequate, given the severity of violating oaths of office, snookering the voters of Wyoming, wasting public money, lying to the citizenry, behaving like some “secret government” and being assholes generally.
A few hundred bucks is a mere rap on the knuckles for these offenses. If defendants lose a WPRA case, then fines should hurt like hell and they should be compelled to pay plaintiff’s attorney fees!
As you read this, another case involving the WPRA is ongoing in a Park County district court.Â
A citizens’ group, opposed to the construction of a huge Mormon church in their neighborhood, has been trying for a couple of years to get background info from municipal planners who gave the go-ahead for construction. The group wants to know if the approval was sufficiently arms-length and above board, or if there was collusion between the church and responsible city officials.Â
But they’ve been stonewalled.
The defendants in this case in Cody, officials on public salary, should pay close attention to Judge Sharp’s ruling from Cheyenne. VERY close attention.
And the Wyoming Legislature should also be paying close attention to these two cases; with an eye toward tightening up the WPRA, closing loopholes, stiffening penalties and making it more user-friendly for laypersons, not just lawyers, to avail themselves of the act when they want to know what government is doing.Â
After all, knowing what your government is doing in your name is the first requirement of good citizenship.
Rod Miller can be reached at: RodsMillerWyo@yahoo.com
