MOBILE, Alabama -- The Mobile Police Department recently sent a request to media outlets asking for input on its public-communications policy as part of its biannual accreditation renewal. It then refused to release the policy.

“It is the height of irony that a communications policy would be kept secret,” said Dennis Bailey, a lawyer for the Alabama Press Association and an expert in Alabama’s open records laws. “There is also no legal justification for such an oxymoronic situation.”

With a few exceptions, none of which would seem to apply to something as basic as a departmental policy, Alabama state law says that “every citizen has a right to inspect and take a copy of any public writing of this state, except as otherwise expressly provided by statute.”

Department spokeswoman Ashley Rains sent out the request for comments in a Monday email:

The language of the request seemed to suggest that the media would have some kind of input on the department's policy, but no policy was attached to the email. AL.com asked Rains if she forgot to attach it by mistake.

Nope, she said. That was it.

AL.com then made a formal request for a copy of the department’s media policy.

Cpl. Christopher Levy, another spokesman, responded. He said that the policy was for the department’s use only. The request for input from the media was made because CALEA’s standards say the media should be consulted when forming communications policy, Levy said.

“If there is anything in it, the policy, that CALEA says ‘You all need to change,’ we will,” he said.

The department’s refusal to release the communications policy is the latest in a string of refusals to release seemingly innocuous information.

When AL.com recently requested the department's moonlighting policy as part of a series on officers' secondary employment, Mobile Police Chief Micheal T. Williams declined to release the document.

Lagniappe, an independent, biweekly paper, was also refused access to financial records related to the department's Police Explorers, a youth outreach program.

As for CALEA’s standards, the organization declined to provide AL.com with a copy because the material is subject to copyright.

Dennis Hyater, CALEA's regional program manager for Mobile, read from the standards over the telephone.

The first sentence: “Agencies have an obligation to inform public and news media of events that affect the lives of citizens in the community with openness and candor.”