LITTLE ROCK — A top aide to Secretary of State Mark Martin resigned earlier this month, alleging in a letter that she believes that “certain aspects related to the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act are not being properly followed by the secretary of state’s office.”
On April 6, then-executive assistant Teresa Belew of Little Rock said in a letter to Martin that she told her superior and colleagues in the office, including Chief Deputy Doug Matayo and deputies A.J. Kelly and Alice Stewart, a former spokesman for former Gov. Mike Huckabee, about her concerns, but they had been “ignored or dismissed.”
While Arkansas law allows the public open accessto the vast majority of information within the office, Belew wrote that “regrettably, I believe that neither the spirit nor the letter ofthe law has properly been followed when some FOIA requests have been made.”
Belew, a former executive director of Arkansas’ chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, declined to comment Monday other than to say, “I stand up [for] what’s in the letter and email 100 percent.”
On Monday, both Martin and Stewart downplayed Belew’s letter and e-mail, with Stewart saying Belew “was not aware of all the facts.”
Stewart said it’s unfortunate that Belew “didn’t raise her concerns to us before her abrupt departure. Had she done so, she would have been aware of the modified FOIA [request] and the scope of the FOIA in question. It was and remains our intention to fully comply with the spirit and letter of the law especially as it relates to FOIA.”
Martin, a former Republican state representative from Prairie Grove, said he’s disappointed with Belew’s written comments about compliance with the Freedom of Information Act.
“I have never had the opportunity to hear her concerns, as she did not express to me nor to anyone else in our office her specific concerns,” he said in a written statement released Monday. “In an ideal situation, she would have expressed those concerns to me before any FOIA response was delivered.”
After a March 18 public records request for e-mails and other documents, Max Brantley, editor of the Arkansas Times, asked Stewartin an e-mail dated April 5 for a copy of a consultant’s contract and asked again for e-mail for Stewart, Kelly, Matayo and Martin on office matters from the secretary of state’s office or personal accounts.
Brantley also wrote in his email that the Arkansas Public Law Center supports legal actions undertaken in the name of government transparency, and “I hope I won’t have to resort to that.”
Stewart replied that she would respond accordingly to the Freedom of Information Act request.
“You mention the Arkansas Public Law Center, are you threatening legal action?” she asked.
On Monday, Brantley said he told Stewart that he was prepared to take legal action.
He stopped short of accusing the secretary of state’s office of violating the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.
“In an abundance of fairness, I don’t want to accuse them of that,” Brantley said,but Martin’s office didn’t provide information requested in a timely period as required by state law.
In an e-mail dated April 6 to Matayo, Belew said her resignation letter refers to her concerns about Freedom of Information Act issues.
Her e-mail referred to one public-records request.
She wrote in her e-mail that she has “experienced tension and stress to the point that I have stated to you and others that I feel like a nervous wreck.
“When you and I talked on Monday, I recounted my continued concerns about personnel, FOIA, Mark’s stress level and what I perceived to be an environment of disrespect, fear and mistrust,” she wrote in her e-mail.
Belew said she was directed on March 24 to print out allof Martin’s emails for the previous 30 days and turn them over to fulfill a Freedom of Information Act request.
“When I started the project, I soon realized that one of the e-mails addressed to Secretary Martin would be immediately controversial. I immediately reported this to Alice. I was told to delete a certain email (which I did not) I was told that the email would be shredded if it fell into the scope of the FOIA request,” she wrote in her email to Matayo, a former state representative.
“That same night I discussed this with AJ and was told not to delete anything, but also not to worry because the most important thing was to delay delivery of the FOIA until the budgets were approved,” Belew said.
“Based on what I was told and the discrepancy in the paper count of the 430 pages I submitted of email printouts compared with the number of copies invoiced to the Arkansas Times, there were likely items not included,” she wrote in her e-mail to Matayo.
“I shared this issue withyou, Doug, and while you indicated that deleting the e-mail should not happen, so far as I know you did not address the core issue,” Belew said.
Belew declined Monday to say what e-mail Stewart told her to delete.
Stewart said that she did not tell Belew to delete a certain e-mail and that she did not tell her that the e-mail would be shredded if it fell into the scope of the Freedom of Information Act request dated March 18.
“The FOIA request was for emails,” she said. “Ms. Belew had printed calendar updates, which fell outside the scope of the FOIA request, and those were removed. All the e-mails that Ms. Belew printed have been turned over to the Arkansas Times.”
Stewart said Kelly didn’t make the statement to Belew that she said he did.
“Deputy Kelly said no such thing and at the time in question, the budget was not an issue,” she said.
Stewart said the secretary of state’s office hasn’t been able to reach Belew yet to discuss her concerns.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 04/19/2011