By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
The Kansas Attorney General's Office recently notified the city of Hays it violated the Kansas Open Records Act by not releasing a copy of an arrest record.
Jill Boyle-Kenyon, formerly of Russell, reported a case of a suspect allegedly peeping into the window of her home in Russell in March.
A Russell police officer wrote Eric Lee Henderson of Russell a ticket on March 27 for criminal trespass.
Boyle-Kenyon told the Hays Post she was concerned for her safety, so in March, she requested an arrest record on Henderson from the Hays Police Department.
Boyle-Kenyon told the Hays Post she wanted to know if this individual had been arrested on a similar charge in Hays.
In an email, which Boyle-Kenyon provided to the Hays Post, Shay Spellman, Hays Police Department records clerk wrote:
"The Hays Police Department's reports are not open to the public. You can subpoena the business records (most people hire an attorney to do this) if you are looking to receive this report. Depending on the information you are looking for you can contact the Hays Municipal Court at 785-625-1070 to see what they would be able to give you."
After receiving the above email from Spellman on March 19, Boyle-Kenyon filed a Kansas Open Records complaint with the Kansas Attorney General's Office.
Boyle-Kenyon said about two weeks after filing the complaint, she received the information she requested.
On Oct. 28, Boyle-Kenyon received a letter from the Kansas Attorney General's Office.
Braelyn Cummings, law clerk for the open government enforcement unit, said in that letter an investigation determined the city of Hays had violated the Kansas Open Records Act.
The unit determined no formal enforcement was required, but the violation will be noted in the unit's annual report.
"We have also requested the city to take remedial action to resolve these violations," the letter said.
The letter said the unit will continue to monitor the matter for compliance.
The city of Hays issued a statement on the violation today. That statement is as follows:
"During the month of March, a request for a city of Hays public record was received by an inexperienced former employee and inadvertently denied.
Upon supervisor review, the record was immediately released. We regret the inconvenience this caused to the person that filed the request.
The city of Hays strives to ensure complete transparency with the public. In this case, we clearly missed the mark.
Although no formal enforcement action was required to create compliance, as a government entity, we always wish to inform the public to the best of our ability, and the review of the initial procedural mishandling involving complex subject matter was addressed with the utmost seriousness.
A complete audit of our open record request practices was conducted following this incident, resulting in new organization-wide procedures being put in place to ensure we are following the letter of the Kansas Open Records Act, both legally and in the spirit of openness it is designed to create.
As a result, the entire organization is now better equipped to respond to open record requests, as confirmed by the Kansas Attorney General’s office."
Following the release of the city's statement, Spellman said, "I was following the policies and procedures given to me by the Hays Police Department.
The city chose not to respond to Spellman.
Boyle-Kenyon said in an interview with the Hays Post this week, "It made me sad, because I worry about other Kansans not realizing the full breadth of their rights to obtain public information from a law agency they should be able to trust."
Boyle-Kenyon was in the process of moving out of state when the alleged trespass incident occurred. She has since moved from Russell.
Because she is no longer living in Kansas, she said the delay in receiving the document did not have a significant adverse effect on her.
However, had she still been living in Russell, she said her answer would have been different.