The Little Rock police union filed a lawsuit against the city Tuesday asking a judge to compel the city to respond to a more than two-month-old records request.
The lawsuit was filed in Pulaski County Circuit Court by Robert Newcomb, attorney for the Little Rock chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police. It was filed on behalf of Jarred McCauley, the police union's president.
On June 3, McCauley requested emails and other written documents about liability for the city not having a fitness test for police officers. Under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, a public records custodian must respond to a request immediately or give a time within three business days to provide the documents in the event they are in active use or storage.
City Attorney Tom Carpenter responded to McCauley's request the day it was sent. The next day, he emailed McCauley to say several city officials indicated they had no such records and that the Information Technology Department had provided him with several hundred emails to look through. Many of the emails appeared to not be responsive to the request, Carpenter wrote.
"Hopefully we will be able to get this information to you quickly. But with the large number of emails to review, I may be in touch to ask for a possible extension. I am not doing so at the moment, but I want to make you aware that might occur," Carpenter said in the June 4 email.
McCauley told him in a reply that the police union had no issue with a reasonable time extension to allow the city to gather the information.
McCauley said by phone Tuesday that he hadn't heard back from Carpenter since then. He sent Carpenter an email Aug. 17 asking for a status update.
When reached by phone after business hours, Carpenter said he hadn't seen McCauley's most recent email. He also hadn't been notified of the lawsuit at that point.
"I don't think we have anything [to turn over in response to the request,] but I will look again tomorrow and find out," Carpenter said.
The lawsuit asks that a judge set a hearing within seven days to order the city to comply with the records request.
"The city's failure to respond in 84 days is a clear violation of the FOIA," the complaint said.
The complaint also asks that McCauley be granted court costs and attorney's fees.
The lawsuit was filed the same day the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported the findings of a private audit report that the Fraternal Order of Police had completed on the city's Fleet Services Department. The report said there are inefficiencies in the department, though it didn't give an exact dollar amount the city could save by running the department differently.
The police union has yet to provide the city with a copy of its audit report, but city officials said they don't agree with some of the findings.
Part of the audit said the city would be better served by contracting out its parts department rather than staffing it with five employees and storing parts on site.
At a city board meeting Tuesday afternoon, City Director at large Joan Adcock requested a presentation from the city manager's office about the report's findings by Friday. Adcock wants to know how Little Rock's fleet management operations compare with North Little Rock's, she said.
She wants the information ahead of a Tuesday night vote on a $500,000 contract with auto-parts dealer Bumper to Bumper to provide the city with basic vehicle repair parts for its parts storage department.
Metro on 08/26/2015