The Palin Administration’s $64,000 Question.
22 05 2009
So, what’s the $64,000 question? Ethics watchdog Linda Kellen Biegel just asked it, apparently. She made a State of Alaska records request to find out what kind of communication has been going on between the governor’s office, right-wing shock jock Eddie Burke, and Anchorage Daily News gossip columnist Sheila Toomey.
After Bill McAllister, Palin’s communication director said in a state press release that he “hoped there would be backlash” against those filing ethics complaints, there started to be….well…backlash against those filing ethics complaints. Go figure.
And it started to manifest in interesting ways. See HERE and HERE. Was there direct communication with the governor’s office regarding these issues? There’s really only one way to find out – a records request. Here’s what she asked for:
Pursuant to Alaska Statute 40.25.110, I request the Office of the Governor to duplicate and provide me with a copy of: 1) any and all email contact between you or any employee of the Office of the Governor (statewide) and Alaska resident Eddie Burke,
2) any and all emails to/from you or any employee of the Office of the Governor (statewide) that discuss Eddie Burke in any way,
3) any and all records requests submitted which target emails to or from Alaska resident Andree McLeod, and
4) a fee breakdown, invoice or any other document which assesses the cost of retrieving the McLeod emails and whether those fees have been/will be charged to the requester.
To find out this information regarding Burke and Toomey will apparently cost….
$65,709. OK, so think of it as the $64,000 question, and change.
For more interesting details on this unfolding intrigue, read the post just up on Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis.
May 22nd, 2009 at 10:19 PM
loreenwl@46 I don’t know if this is the right Sheila Toomey but I found it on google images. Okay, “it” doesn’t want to accept the big google link. Just go to Google and type in Sheila Toomey and click on images and I believe it is the first image shown.
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:02 PM
Dr. Patois Says:
May 22nd, 2009 at 10:19 PM
Okay, “it” doesn’t want to accept the big google link.
You can make a “TinyURL” out of a long link here:
http://tinyurl.com/create.php?url=about%3Ablank
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:19 PM
I am sure, in the past, there have been people who have requested e-mail searches from past governor administrations. There are enough reputable Alaskan blogs who could find out this information by placing a notice at their blog sites. “If anyone has ever requested e-mail or records searches from the State of Alaska during the beginning of Palin’s administration or during Murkowski’s and Knowles administraion, please let us know how you were charged for those searches?”
Also, why would the IT people have to work an excessive amount of hours performing their jobs to produce these e-mails and records? It shouldn’t take very long. To me it sounds like the State IT people aren’t qualified to perform their duties in a timely manner, and maybe the State could find people who know how to perform searches more efficiently.
Possibly this information could show what the norm is, and if Palin is out of line, as usual.
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:27 PM
I’d certainly like to know the fee breakdown of that.
What are they charging for photocopies? $150 a page? And the hourly rate for the clerk? $250 an hour?
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:30 PM
Okay, AKM, this is almost OT, but where the hell did you find a frame of the isolation booth? That’s from MY childhood.
May 23rd, 2009 at 12:45 AM
This is absurd beyond belief, and it makes sense only in palinland.
I have filed dozens of FOIA requests, and paid nothing-or a pittance-for anything due to the “public interest” exclusion.
If Diva didn’t have me blocked I could give her some useful advice.
May 23rd, 2009 at 3:19 AM
I’m just wondering how much it cost Sheila Toomey to get that e-mail about Andree? Seems as if they were able to process that request fairly fast!!
May 23rd, 2009 at 5:57 AM
Being the short-sorted person she is (is that why she wears glasses), Palin obviously has not given one thought as to how this will come back to bite her in the butt if she tries to run for a national office. I don’t see America accepting fees like this for FOIA material. I can picture the Swift Boat ads now.
May 23rd, 2009 at 6:22 AM
They were several rulings out of the higher courts addressing (excessive fees) this issue. I don’t have time to research, so if anyone with time on their hands might turn up something interesting. I would be surprised if this has not already been covered in prior administrations. States will differ than others, not sure if the mighty courts have covered this. But of course goober head don’t care what the courts say, she wants it her way. Something like this is what is going to bring her down, ignorance of the law is no excuse. As the law looks at it “doesn’t matter if you don’t know, you should have known.”
May 23rd, 2009 at 6:31 AM
transparent? you betcha! put a quarter in the “machine” and watch all you want. Bring LOTS of quarters…Kinda like a crooked state fair Iron Claw game that you just cant win.
May 23rd, 2009 at 7:29 AM
#56 Irishgirl Says:
May 23rd, 2009 at 3:19 AM
I’m just wondering how much it cost Sheila Toomey to get that e-mail about Andree? Seems as if they were able to process that request fairly fast!!
—————-
Excellent point! This could be the beginning of quite a lovely scandal.
May 23rd, 2009 at 7:35 AM
60 curiouser Says:
May 23rd, 2009 at 7:29 AM
#56 Irishgirl Says:
May 23rd, 2009 at 3:19 AM
I’m just wondering how much it cost Sheila Toomey to get that e-mail about Andree? Seems as if they were able to process that request fairly fast!!
—————-
Excellent point! This could be the beginning of quite a lovely scandal.
************************************************
How long ?? Oh……..in the time it takes to read and type our 3 posts.
May 23rd, 2009 at 7:48 AM
Didn’t Sheila Toomey tell Celtic Diva that she submitted a request for Andree’s email?
I think this is worth following up!
May 23rd, 2009 at 7:52 AM
When you consider that Palin was OK with victims paying for their rape kits, $65,000 isn’t that out of line. She’s just passing on the cost of the annual salary for the person doing the search and the cost of the annual contract for the photocopy machine that will be used to the person making the request. Probably throwing in the cost of a brand new computer too. And a few reams of paper.
May 23rd, 2009 at 7:59 AM
I can see by your posts that none of you have ever been involved in a law suit where e-mails were searched. I was and I requested information from e-mails of six months and had to pay $50,000…all I got was 3 e-mails that said nothing that helped me.
A major part of my fee was the lawyer reviewing all the e-mails and then both lawyers reviewing the found e-mails. When the other side said they only found three if we wanted to contest that it would have been even more. Unless you think there is really something there it is a big waste of time and money.
May 23rd, 2009 at 8:04 AM
$64K to search thru a few dozen mail archives? That is good work if ya can get it!
May 23rd, 2009 at 8:05 AM
at c4peeeee they’ll say, “sarah is supporting Ak revenue by charging the ankle biters for their annoying requests”..
FOIA is NOT a for profit endeavor. I think…
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:17 AM
Part of the request already includes a search for whether Sheila and/or Eddie did records requests on Andree.
I also want to than you guys a LOT! I used some of your ideas in the response I crafted to Linda Perez. THANK YOU!!!!
Linda
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:31 AM
Open, transparent- only if you afford to force Palin to disclose!
This is simply more BS from Palin and her henchmen/women. There is software available now to do e-mail account searches, to electronically redact information if it should not be disclosed, etc. A company making the software offered it to the state when Palin tried to extort millions out of various media sources when they filed PUBLIC RECORD disclosure requests.
Other administrations did not do this- otherwise you would have heard similar complaints, especially from Palin if Frank Murkowski had tried to pull a stunt like this.
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:53 AM
I know that this is not Rex Butler’s expertise/field…. but I’ll bet he could come up with some names of Attorneys who might look into this…?
An Attorney who has to live in Alaska and has to live under the Rule of this ‘village idiot’…?
Gryphen, Celtic Diva, and AKM…. put some feelers out there…. you never know who might be listening and watching. And their name would get a LOT of Press, Statewide and Nationally. Good for their business. Can you say ‘pro-bono’.
May 23rd, 2009 at 11:05 AM
Unbelievable ! This sounds like a typical Republican ploy to circumvent a written law. Something like George Bush used to pull.
Obviously, sarah has something (many things) to hide, that is the reason for the huge money request, that not even Warren Buffett would pay, and HE can afford it !
May 23rd, 2009 at 12:40 PM
Palins “NSF-FOIA—-Not So Free Freedom of Information Act”.
May 23rd, 2009 at 12:43 PM
Best of luck to you, Celtic Diva!!
May 23rd, 2009 at 12:59 PM
Diva…….you should contact those in the pre election media to see if they ever got their emails they asked for, and to see how much they were charged, and to see if any explanation on how the cost of charges were determined. See if it anything consistent, to see if it’s even close to the “explanation for your charges”. We know they make these things up as they love winging it. I’d also check into how other states are charging, compare prices and compare methods used.
Did the national Dem party ever request any records? I can’t remember.
May 23rd, 2009 at 1:02 PM
Also too, revisit articles when Palin did this to Murkoski……..
http://www.adn.com/news/government/renkes/story/42200.html
“Palin on Friday again criticized the governor’s initial response to the Renkes revelations and said she suspected that someone in the governor’s office pressured the board to say explicitly that Murkowski had not violated ethics act procedures.”
May 23rd, 2009 at 1:05 PM
from the same article I just posted……..
“Croft and Palin argue that the governor should have referred the Renkes matter to the personnel board in October, immediately after a newspaper story reported Renkes’ stock holdings, rather than waiting until December, when he received a formal complaint from Palin and Croft. The two said Murkowski should not have hired Anchorage attorney Robert Bundy to investigate, as he did in October.”
May 23rd, 2009 at 2:11 PM
NMJ says:
You can make a “TinyURL” out of a long link here:
http://tinyurl.com/create.php?url=about%3Ablank
Thanks NMJ!
May 23rd, 2009 at 3:05 PM
@ Dr. Patois
Thanks for pointing me to Sheila Toomey’s photo. Not the same person I knew. Thank goodness. I would hate to think my old friend turned into someone I did not recognize.
May 23rd, 2009 at 4:11 PM
The City of Wasilla processed a huge number of records requests after the announcement of the VP nomination. As far as I know, they were all handled fairly quickly, and I’d be surprised if the whole lot of them brought in $64 K to the city’s coffers to offset costs. Essentially, the city’s IT department is two out-sourced technicians.
There was also a fairly massive records request related to former Mayor Keller’s administration’s efforts to assist Meritage Development and the resulting ethics investigation.
I’d sure like to know more about how the city’s volume of records requests and associated charges compare to those of the state.