Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr. has been ordered by a Pulaski County circuit judge to appear in court on Nov. 16 to explain why he failed to turn over public records pertaining to his cellphone use that were requested two months ago by a Little Rock attorney and blogger.
According to court records, Matt Campbell of Little Rock, an attorney and author of the political blog "Blue Hog Report," requested cellphone records for "all monthly cell phone statements for any phone used by Frank Scott Jr. from 1/1/2019 to present," in a Freedom of Information Act request dated Sept. 9.
That request was one of 13 submitted by Campbell between Sept. 9 and Sept. 22 seeking city records. Other requests were for business emails, information related to a food truck festival, permits related to the aborted LITFest event and other records pertaining to Think Rubix, the firm that had the contract for LITFest.
On Sept. 22, Campbell filed suit against the city of Little Rock, claiming that he had not received the requested records within the time frame allowed by the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act. On Friday, Campbell filed a motion for a show cause order and finding of contempt over the city's failure to turn over the records in a timely fashion.
In an order dated Oct. 27, Circuit Judge Morgan "Chip" Welch noted that the city had begun providing the requested information to Campbell and he ordered that the city continue to provide "rolling disclosures of documents as they are located and redacted," and he ordered the city to provide all information available at a given time within 24 hours.
A response to Campbell's motion filed Monday said the city had complied with Campbell's requests but that one point of contention remained over a single data point.
"Plaintiff's sole basis behind the Motion to Show Cause is disagreeing with whether a single point of data is subject to the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act ("the AFOIA")," the city's response said, "and because Plaintiff believes that point of data should not have been redacted, the City had not provided any documents within a 48 hour window and is therefore in violation of the Order."
On Tuesday, Campbell told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that he had received answers to most of his information requests, but said he did not receive the last of the cell phone records he had requested two months ago until Saturday. Those cell phone records, he said, were the mayor's personal cell phone records, which he said were subject to FOIA because of Scott's habit of using his personal cell phone to conduct city business.
Campbell said he first received cell phone records that were "completely redacted, making them useless," and that he only received the unredacted records after he filed the show cause motion.
"Had they just done that a day earlier instead of jacking around and trying to give me only what Frank wanted to give me instead of what they were required to, I'd have never filed the motion," he said. "They were trying to get out of having the mayor held in contempt even though they've now provided the records in the way they should have provided them in the first place.
"By Saturday afternoon I had all of them," Campbell said.
In an email sent by City Attorney Tom Carpenter Tuesday afternoon to Scott, several city officials and the city board of directors, Carpenter advised officials of the show cause hearing and said his office is drafting, "a civil action against Think Rubix to divest all of the monies it collected for LITFest, and to provide all of the records of the actions it took to the City."
Campbell said to date Think Rubix has refused to turn over any records it has pertaining to its contract with the city.
In the email, Carpenter also addressed the issue of Scott's personal cell phone records.
"Mayor Scott has provided the information to this office, and this office has redacted that information pursuant to state statute," the email said. "There is disagreement on the application of the law to these redactions -- e.g., account numbers. This office feels strongly that the Mayor has provided the information requested, and that since Mayor Scott paid any personal cell phone bills, Mr. Campbell is not entitled to the additional information he requests."