we saw that...

update on new city of pineville public records request

back on 23 july 2007 we posted the copy of the letter mr. lynton o. hester, iii, sent to city of pineville, la. mayor clarence fields, in which mr. hester was asking mayor fields, under the public records laws, as to the date and time that he (mr. hester) could come to pineville city hall and view emails sent and received by pineville chief of staff rich dupree.

this morning we were pleasantly surprised to see that the alexandria daily town talk reporter karina donica wrote a short story captioned "request filed to 'view' pineville official's emails".

as far as we knew, the only place where it had been made public that mr. hester's request had been filed was here on the blogosphere. apparently, sometime yesterday ms. donica telephoned mr. hester for a comment for her story and this rather sudden; unexpected main stream news media interest, perhaps took him aback:

earlier today mr. hester emailed wst...

Wesawthat,
I have posted the following response under the Town Talk article in todays paper about the records request. I thought it was a lame attempt at a public ambush.
Lynton

I have made a request to view specified e-mails that have drawn much attention in Pineville as a citizen using certified return receipt mail with a phone number enclosed. At the time of this posting, I have had no response except the article in todays Town Talk, which I find highly unusual and suspect behavior.

The first question that was asked by Karina Donica was "what do you want the e-mails for?" to which my reply was that I was returning the call out of courtesy and that I was preparing dinner for family and would like to conduct the interview on the following day. She informed me that the story would run and that she understood. What is glaringly obvious is that he subject matter must be highly radioactive for there to be such a high level of interest in a request made by a humble citizen.

Secondly, if I was being properly informed of governmental developments by our local media, I would not be compelled to investigate for myself.

Thirdly, can any and all citizens expect the same "public outing" if they make a similar request?
Inquiring minds want to know

thats an interesting theory that you raise -- as far as being "outed" or an attempt to intimidate you etc. will you go ahead with your request or will you withdraw it? or have you decided yet?

The request is in play and they have failed to return the serve thus far. They have my cell phone and my home address as you saw. I fully intend to show up when they inform me of the accommodations in time and facilities that are available. Failure to respond will result in a complaint being filed through proper channels with all of the attending documentation. I will let the dogs chew on them for a while if they fail in their diligence.

Lynton