Auditor: Parks leader wrong on records

Cincinnati Parks Director Willie Carden recently instituted a new list of public records available at his department, cutting an earlier, out-of-date list in half and omitting some fundamental records.

However, he did so without required local or state approval.

Now the parks department is facing questions from state Auditor Dave Yost over the changes to the records policy, which Yost Monday called “wrong seven ways to Sunday.”

Parks operations have faced greater scrutiny in recent months since Mayor John Cranley and parks leaders asked voters to approve a permanent levy for the system. The charter amendment was turned down by voters at a 2-to-1 margin.

The parks department, like every public agency in Ohio, by law must keep a “road map” of public documents it holds and controls. The road map, or records-retention schedule, is supposed to outline what documents the agency keeps, how long they’re kept, how they’re kept and when the schedule was adopted. The idea: help the public ask intelligent questions when trying to find out details about governmental decisions and actions.

During the levy campaign, The Enquirer attempted to use the parks department’s retention schedule to find documents. Asked about it, Carden – who has run the parks department for nearly 15 years – initially responded, “I have no idea what this is. Not part of my administration.”

It turned out that retention schedule hadn’t been updated since 1991, when the Internet and digital record-keeping were not a common part of the working world.

After the levy vote, Carden said the records schedule had been updated, as he and Park Board Chairman Otto Budig had promised at an Enquirer editorial board meeting during the campaign.

The new schedule includes an approval date of Oct. 15 by the Cincinnati Records Commission. But the Records Commission did not approve the changes nor did Yost, whose office gets final approval on all records retention schedules across the state.

When an Enquirer reporter raised questions to city officials about records missing from the document and details of the approval process, representatives from the City Manager’s Office and City Law Department said the new schedule submitted by Carden was, in fact, a draft.

The schedule now appears on the city website clearly marked as a draft. The Records Commission plans to review it at a 2:30 p.m. meeting Wednesday.

The updated schedule includes 51 types of records, as opposed to 99 on the previous schedule. It does not include public correspondence (public officials emails, letters, memos, etc.) commonly found in document retention schedules.

When asked if other records existed, Carden wrote in a Dec. 2 email that “the only data we have is the information identified in the retention document.”

But Yost, the state auditor, said all records held by a government agency in Ohio are public, unless there is an exemption in state law. Records do not need to appear on a schedule to be public, he said.

Public records are “the lifeblood of accountable government,” Yost said. “It’s how we track the money, the arguments and the decisions. How we track compliance with the law. Get rid of public records and nine times out of 10 you cannot prove what did or didn’t happen, and nobody is accountable.”

The key to public records is that they belong to the public, Yost said.

Carden didn’t respond to a request Monday to comment on Yost’s concerns.

City Hall attorneys called the situation “a misunderstanding.”

“Due to a desire to update their records schedule, the Parks Department conducted its internal process for reviewing and updating their records schedule earlier this year,” chief city counsel Roshani Hardin said in an emailed statement. “Due to a misunderstanding regarding the process for final approval of the updated schedule, that proposed Parks schedule update was issued prior to obtaining the required city and state of Ohio approvals.”

The proper process is for parks or any agency to seek approval from the city Records Commission.

If approved by the Records Commission, the schedule would be forwarded to the Ohio History Connection (formerly the Ohio Historical Society), which checks which documents require a certificate of records disposal before the city can dispose of them. The schedule is then forwarded to the Yost’s office for final approval.

“I’m not allowed to come to your house and take your stuff to Goodwill because it belongs to you,” Yost said. “In the same way, a public official is not allowed to just get rid of public documents.”

Karl Idsvoog, a leading expert on public records and journalism professor at Kent State University, says the core issue is transparency, which he calls “the number one essential quality of democracy.”

“Sounds like they really didn’t care, they’ll just do it this way and that’s good enough,” Idsvoog said. “Any responsible public official should have great concern about providing public records and helping the public get access to public records.”

In the wake of the levy defeat, the city law department on Nov. 10 gave parks staff training on the Ohio Open Records Act.