From the Cincinnati Enquirer

A firestorm of criticism has erupted in Warren County after defense lawyers discovered that a live feed of their hearings and trials goes directly into Prosecutor David Fornshell's office across the hall. The revelation came during a recent aggravated murder trial when a defense attorney complained that others were able to hear his confidential conversations with his client because they were being broadcast over a microphone in the courtroom.

From Editor & Publisher

“There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy.”-- Joseph Pulitzer

There might very well be a winner in this time of newspaper downsizing. Sinister people in government are rejoicing. For the last five years, they have enjoyed operating out of public view. Newspaper reporters, editors and owners are not frequently fighting the open government and access battles. If truth is the first casualty of war, then the First Amendment is the first casualty when newspapers bleed. 

From The Columbus Dispatch

A group dedicated to shining “a light on the fossil fuel lobby’s influence and propaganda” is warring with the administration of Ohio Gov. John Kasich over his office’s response to its public records request.

In a blog post, the Checks and Balances Project accuses the administration of evading its request for records concerning Senate Bill 310, which weakened Ohio’s renewable energy standards. The law was crafted by majority Republican lawmakers and signed by Kasich.

From the Columbus Dispatch

Law-enforcement agencies wield great power and therefore must be accountable to the public for its use. This applies regardless of who is paying an officer’s salary, especially when that employer is an institution such as a university.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is weighing in on a legal fight to establish that arrest records and incident reports of Otterbein University and other private universities and hospitals are public documents.

Editorial from The Akron Beacon Journal

Local governments in Ohio face an unnecessary struggle getting information they need to prepare effectively for accidents involving oil and gas wells and the shipment of crude oil on rail lines. Full and prompt disclosure is a must. It serves the objective of making sure public safety and the safety of first responders are leading regulatory priorities.

Several recent developments have underscored the need to re-establish a greater degree of local authority. The problem is that the legislature in 2004 placed exclusive control over oil and gas drilling with the state Department of Natural Resources. Shipments of oil by rail are largely regulated by the federal government.

Last week, the Ohio Environmental Council raised alarming questions about how the Department of Natural Resources responded to a fire at a drilling rig in Southeast Ohio. According to a report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the department was not actively involved until three days after the well pad caught fire. It took five days for Halliburton, the drilling company, to disclose a complete list of all chemicals used in the drilling process.

Local governments are fighting back, too, seeking to reinstate some authority over the rapidly expanding oil and gas industry. But they are meeting resistance from drillers. Of late, the industry sued Broadview Heights over a “bill of rights” the city adopted in 2012. The city attempted to ban hydraulic fracturing, despite the state law denying such actions.

In Hudson, fire officials and residents are concerned about shipments of volatile Bakken crude across the state. The federal government now requires notification, but not if shipments are below 1 million gallons.

Changes to state and federal regulations on what must be disclosed, when and to whom deserve high priority. The best strategy would be to require complete disclosure to local officials in advance, including, in the case of oil and gas well drillers, proprietary information about chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing.

Attorneys from the Ohio Environmental Council point to the promising route, one suggested by a 1986 lawsuit involving a city of Oregon ordinance targeting a hazardous waste dump. As with oil and gas wells, state law barred local zoning and permitting requirements. But an Ohio Supreme Court decision upheld the ordinance, which required the dump to provide detailed records and levied a fee to fund city oversight.

The city of Athens has acted in a similar fashion to deal with oil and gas wells and waste disposal, its oversight aimed at protecting public safety through monitoring, and at recovering costs imposed on the community. The sound point is, local communities are on the front lines when things go wrong, their safety personnel and citizens bearing the brunt. At the least, they deserve to know fully and promptly what harmful substances are within their borders.

From the Columbus Dispatch

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine wants to enter the legal fight over whether the arrest records and incident reports of private police forces are public records. 

DeWine asked the Ohio Supreme Court on Friday to accept his arguments supporting a lawsuit filed by a former Otterbein University student journalist seeking police records from the private Westerville school. 

Since the Otterbein police department – and others at private universities and hospitals – is a creation of state law, they are public offices required to turn over records, DeWine’s office wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief. 

Anna Schiffbauer, then news editor of Otterbein360.com, a student-run news website, sued Otterbein earlier this year over its refusal to turn over records of arrests made by university police. 

Otterbein responded in its court filings that its police records are not public because it is a private institution neither funded nor controlled by state government. The university has asked the justices to dismiss the lawsuit. 

Since state law grants officers working for private employers police powers that include arrest authority, private police forces are subject to Ohio’s public records law, DeWine’s office wrote in its filing. 

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From The Toledo Blade

The governor’s administration and the fossil-fuel industry are closely intertwined. Gov. John Kasich has signed a measure that freezes Ohio’s popular renewable-energy standards. Although the freeze attracted most of the attention, the new law also calls for a two-year study of the standards’ impact on the state.

From the Canton Repository

Council President Jeff Peters, Ward 2, said Tuesday the city will, with a few exceptions, email public records to those asking for them. Since November, under a policy drafted by Law Director Tim Fox and approved

From The Cincinnati Enquirer

Video from police cruiser cameras are not public records, according to a recent appellate court decision that applies to most southwest Ohio counties. The May 27 ruling by the Ohio 12th District Court of Appeals involved

From The Columbus Dispatch

Ohio’s governor and his challenger both find themselves before the Ohio Supreme Court in disputes over public records and personal security and safety. The Ohio Republican Party asked

From The Columbus Dispatch

A pair of U.S. marshals visited the Franklin County recorder’s office late last month, and, lest readers jump to conclusions, we should say upfront that no one was in trouble. The marshals were

From NetNewsCheck.com

Thirty-eight journalism and open government groups today called on President Obama to stop practices in federal agencies that prevent important information from getting to the public. The national organizations sent a letter to Obama today urging changes to policies that constrict information flow to the public, including prohibiting journalists from communicating with staff without going through public information offices, requiring government PIOs to vet interview questions and monitoring interviews between journalists and sources.

From The Canton Repository

A judge who earlier found that a southwest Ohio township government violated open-meetings law with informal gatherings has ordered it to pay nearly $200,000 in attorney fees and costs. The 2011 lawsuit said

From The Columbus Dispatch

For the third time since 2012, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources has turned over documents and cash to settle a lawsuit contending the agency illegally withheld public records. The settlement, in which the department 

From the ASNE This Week

You may recall (since we circulated an alert about it) that the House of Representatives passed comprehensive Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reform legislation last summer. However, our celebration of this key legislative action was cut short when we learned soon after that the Senate didn't intend to move the House bill, and instead Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., two longtime champions of FOIA and open government, were drafting their own legislation. So we set to work with these and other members of the Senate and their staff to ensure that this Senate FOIA reform bill would improve the federal FOIA in several ways.

Thank you to the more than 60 Ohio media outlets who took part in the recently completed Ohio Public Records Audit under the auspices of the Ohio Coalition for Open Government. Below is a partial listing of the media coverage given to the audit by Ohio Newspaper Association members. And don't forget to take the Ohio Public Records Quiz, which is a fun way to test your knowledge of the state's public records laws.

By Dennis Hetzel, Executive Director

There’s good news for Ohio citizens in the results of a statewide, county-by-county public records audit that was conducted by more than 60 Ohio media outlets in April under the auspices of the Ohio Coalition for Open Government. But you shouldn’t get too excited. Problems with open records in Ohio are deeper and more complicated than ever. Let me explain why.

Editorial from the Canton Repository

Ohioans probably don’t pay much attention to the state’s “sunshine laws” until they need to use them. If they do need to use them, it should be a hassle-free process. A collaboration between Attorney General Mike DeWine’s office and the Ohio State Bar Foundation may help to make it so. DeWine’s office has

Editorial from The Plain Dealer

The Ohio Supreme Court this week shamefully and wrongly ducked a question about JobsOhio -- Gov. John Kasich's signature economic development program -- that somebody needs to answer: whether, in dissenting Democratic Justice William O'Neill's words, "hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are being spent in direct violation of the Ohio Constitution." What's more, the high court's

Editorial from The Columbus Dispatch

Ohioans rely on easy access to public records to keep tabs on their government — as in, did the city council’s meeting minutes show it will fight a liquor-license renewal for a crime-ridden corner carryout? And to keep government honest and defend