The Internet is making it harder and harder for fabrications to fly. That is a good thing.
The Martin Chronicles previously reported that the interim city clerk recently sent a letter to open records requestors advising them that none of the records they sought exist. One of the records requested was copies of tickets that had been voided by the mayor or police chief.
We used that darn Internet to watch the September Villa Hills' council meeting available at tbnk.org. During that meeting there was an exchange between Mayor Martin and questioning council members. The mayor acknowledged voiding tickets during that exchange. He even provided a tortuous example of voiding a ticket incorrectly given to visitors from Florida for not displaying the notorious "city sticker".
So where are the copies of the voided tickets?
Are we to conclude that the head-full-of-lead interim city clerk-who is by statute designated "the keeper of the records"-is so disorganized she simply can't locate the voided tickets?
Or has Mayor Martin decided that no matter how many times people request records, he will refuse to provide them?
The city attorney has billed the taxpayers for his time reviewing the open records issues. What did he really find?
Martin will be hard-pressed to blame the previous administration for his administration's persistent inability to find records that have been generated under his watch. But he will anyway.
No answer to these questions will be a good one. We are either dealing with gross incompetence or a wilful disregard for Kentucky Open Records statutes. Or, more likely, a toxic combination of both.
One long-time local resident jokes that maybe all the vanishing information people continue to request was kept in the safe Martin had crushed with the city back hoe. If only the answer was that simple.
