Attorney Steven Sandven posts his bills in the Rapid City Journal... his open-records bills, that is, from the state of South Dakota:
Sioux Falls attorney Steven Sandven could buy a new car with the $20,000 South Dakota officials want to charge him for requesting public records on the federal money-for-green-cards EB-5 program. The state Board of Regents wants to charge $15,835 to find EB-5 related documents, and the state has already charged him $4,098 for records from the Governor's Office of Economic Development, or the GOED.
That figure comes from the amount of hours that the office's deputy commissioner, Nathan Lukkes, believes it will take to locate the records Sandven requested, and to confirm that they are public documents. Lukkes is charging Sandven $46 per hour — the hourly rate of Lukkes' salary, $77,976, including benefits.
"I'm having to buy everything but his lunch," Sandven said over the phone in early January [Joe O'Sullivan, "State Charging $20,000 for EB-5 Records Request," Rapid City Journal, 2014.02.09].
According to O'Sullivan's report, that high price doesn't expedite service; Sandven says he's been told he'll have to wait until May for satisfaction of his requests. The state also won't help Sandven save costs on delivery:
He has also been told he must drive to Aberdeen, which is around 200 miles from Sioux Falls, to pick up records from Northern State University, where a private company collected tens of millions of dollars in EB-5 money for South Dakota projects.
The university won't email the records due to "security reasons," according to Sandven.
"Which is ridiculous," he said. "We file all our court documents electronically now" [O'Sullivan, 2014.02.09].
Sandven testified to the "inconsistent" and "excessive" fees various state agencies charge for access to public records Wednesday before the House State Affairs Committee in support of Rep. Bernie Hunhoff's House Bill 1139, which sought to cap public records request service fees at $10 per hour. Rep. Hunhoff (D-18/Yankton) told the committee HB 1139 was moderate compared to other states: Idaho gives public-record requestors two hours and 100 pages for free; Delaware gives 20 pages for free, then charges 10 cents per subsequent page. Rep. Hunhoff struck a Madvillian note, stating that the real answer to high public records costs by putting more records online.
The state responded, via Emily Ward of the Bureau of Finance and Management, Tony Venhuizen of the Governor's office, and Jim Shekelton of the Board of Regents' legal office, that $10 and hour isn't enough to cover dedicating a mere minimum-wage employee to reviewing and editing the documents in some of the more complicated open records requests. Venhuizen said state agencies already respond to the vast majority of open records requests for free. Ward acknowledged that the public already pays for normal state government operations but that state employees have too many other functions to carry out to be able to spend three out of five days a week riffling through the file cabinets for us. Attorney Shekelton said open records laws are great but that we didn't create them to subsidize either out-state businesses (some of whom he cited as making their living compiling and marketing data about university athletics) or the discovery practices of lawyers.
The Republicans on House State Affairs agreed with the state and killed HB 1139 on a 9-to-4 vote. Sandven will have to put off buying that new car.
Joe Lowe, I hope you are paying close attention. By the way you have my vote.
"Ward acknowledged that the public already pays for normal state government operations but that state employees have too many other functions to carry out to be able to spend three out of five days a week riffling through the file cabinets for us. "
Like what, shoveling snow at the Governor's mansion, mowing grass around the capitol, cleaning up the goose poop? When the legislature passed the bill a couple of terms ago, requiring all kinds of information for renewing your drivers' license, the state started charging exorbitant fees for public records, like birth certificates, marriage licenses, divorce decrees etc. If I remember correctly, when a friend of mine had to renew hers, it was 5 or ten dollars for each one. She also had to get one of her pieces of information from Colorado and they charged 50 cents to cover the postage to send it. Okay, in this day and age of identity theft, I can understand the need to verify to whom the state is issuing identification, but to made folks pay through the roof to do that is outrageous, and maybe even unconstitutional, since the records are ours to begin with.
Lanny, Your post makes far too much sense and SD state government will have none of that!
Besides,state employees wouldn't have to spend so much time(at a ridiculous cost)rifling through file cabinets if they had the sense to store all of those public records on a computerized system.
So much for a transparent government with citizens being able to have access to information that is important...
Now your gubmint finds itself concerned with a minimum wage earner? Where is/was the compassion for the rest of the sub-culture that gets minimum wage or less? What hypocritical asshats these mortal,elected asshats be.
When you consider the number of his requests that's about $100 a pop .
Mike Verchio: the state has not been forthcoming with records regarding EB-5. Getting anything out of them has been like pulling teeth and we might not have known anything if Benda hadn't died. That set the whole ball rolling. Yes, it was being looked at behind the scenes, but the general public knew nothing about how poorly this program was being mismanaged. Open government in SD is as ironic as the old USSR's paper being called Pravda. (truth).
Organizations which monitor such things have consistently placed South Dakota in the category of the most secretive, repressive, and underhanded state when it comes to providing information to citizens. The state does not have a freedom of information act and its public access laws are carefully designed to perpetuate the ransom of records and obstruct and delay any chance of obtaining them. Here is outlined the federal guidelines on FOIA requests:
What does it cost to make a FOIA request?
Agencies are authorized to charge certain fees associated with the processing of requests. Some categories of requesters cannot be charged these fees and in some cases fees can be reduced or waived.
FEE CATEGORIES
Under the FOIA, solely for fee purposes, an agency is required to determine the projected use of the records sought by the FOIA request and the type of requester asking for the documents. As the FOIA was intended to promote the public's access to information, news media organizations and educational institutions are excused from certain fees.
Fee categories for FOIA are:
1) Commercial - Companies that or people who seek information for a use or purpose that furthers commercial, trade, or profit interests, including for use in litigation. Commercial requesters are required to pay for search, review and duplication costs.
2) Educational Institution - Preschools, public or private elementary or secondary schools, and institutions of graduate higher education, undergraduate higher education, professional education, or vocational education that operate a program(s) of scholarly research. Educational requesters are required to pay duplication costs, but are entitled to the first 100 pages without charge.
3) Non-Commercial Scientific Institution - Non-commercially operated institutions that conduct scientific research not intended to promote any particular product or industry. Non-commercial requesters are required to pay duplication costs, but are entitled to the first 100 pages without charge.
4) Representative of the News Media - People who actively gather news for entities organized and operated to publish or broadcast news to the public. News Media requesters are required to pay for duplication, but are entitled to the first 100 pages without charge.
5) Other Requesters - Requesters who do not fit into any of the above categories. These requesters are persons who are not commercial, news media, scientific or educational requesters and are required to pay search costs for more than 2 hours and duplication costs for more than 100 pages.
To demonstrate that you belong in an educational, news media or non-commercial fee category, provide information about the intended professional scholarly or journalistic uses of the information you receive. List any relevant previous or pending publications, including books, articles, dissertations, publication contracts or letters of intent or interest, or similar information that shows your ability to disseminate the information you receive from the agency. State that the materials are not requested solely for a private, profit-making commercial purpose. You should request that, to the extent any fees are assessable, the agency notify you if those fees will exceed an amount you specify. For a court decision interpreting the fee provisions of the FOIA, see National Security Archive v. Department of Defense, 880 F.2d 1381 (D.C. Cir. 1989).
Actual search, review and duplication fees vary by agency. Search/Review fees can be anywhere $8.00 to $45.00 per hour and duplication fees can be from $.10 to $.35 per page. Agencies cannot require a requester to make an advance payment unless the agency estimates that the fee is likely to exceed $250 or the requester previously failed to pay proper fees.
FEE WAIVERS
Under the FOIA it is possible to have all fees, including copying, waived by the agency if the material requested "is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of government and is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requester." If your request fits this statutory criterion, you should make your case for a fee waiver in your request letter as strongly as possible. Be sure to describe the scholarly, historical, or current public interest in the material requested, identify specific operations or activities of government to which the request relates, why the information will contribute to an understanding of those activities and operations, why the public in general would be interested, and why the disclosure would be significant.
From the article linked above that was published in today's RCJ: "Testifying against the bill was Tony Venhuizen, the chairman of last year's Open Government Task Force. The task force introduced eight bills to make government more open; legislators shot down six of the eight bills."
Could someone please tell me WHY legislators would shoot down six of eight bills which would have made government more open?? The lack of transparency in SD's State government is apparently not confined to the Governor's office - the desire to maintain the status quo appears to belong to a majority of legislators as well!
Want transparency? How much transparency can you afford? Kind of like our judicial system - how much "justice" can you afford"?
Maybe they were stupid bills, Mr. Bulle, and went against conservative principles and were geared toward the libbie takeover of your government, with the end result a greenie elimination of kitty hunting. I'm just sayin...
Wasn't Fee Waivers the lead singer for the Tubes? These bills are wingnut designed to make the gubmint work the way it is supposed to. Only for the wealthy. Get only the players of certain standing and there are less complications. Maybe they can sell memberships like exclusive Country Clubs and keep the undesirables out.
grudz,
Have to believe that you and buddy Larry are drinkin' the same kool aid and smokin' the same stuff...and that the indoctrination and education in how to maximize your absurdity has been successfully completed by your mentor.
Right, Bulle. Pot: meet crack.
Mr. Bulle, I'm sure you are a fine fellow. Larry and I would like to have you over for dinner. Can you bring the meat?
grudz,
Sure. I could bring some lion meat, or would you prefer crow?
Kitty would be fine. We'll dine at our mutual friend Bill's place, usual time.
I wonder how much it would cost to get copies of all the docs that have already been gathered and compiled for eide bailey and the two other outfits conducting "reviews/not audits"? And the info already gathered and compiled for our AG and the Feds? One would think it would be a lot less than 15k since the work is already done. It will also be interesting so see price tag on these investigations and "reviews/not audits". Easily got to be six figures. I suppose it is just part of the cost of being a tax payer in SD.
Good point Jim, I believe the total costs for the two firms were far under six figures, which doesn't make sense if they were at all similarly charged.
The problem is that this looks like grandstanding. Anyone who has followed this story and actually read what has happened to this point would realize that GOED was not where the action was. It took place within the SDRC/SDIBI offices. Since Bollen took the EB-5 records (and, presumably others) when he left Northern State in 2009, the only place to look is within the records of SDRC and all its affiliated entities.
So, since this has been well documented previously, submitting overlapping and repetitive records requests when the records are not even there is like trying to draw water from a dry well.
Of course, by doing such when one know it will result in large bills and few records appears to be just trying to make headlines and not to try and get to the bottom of the scandal. Very similar to much of the conduct which happens everyday by the South Dakota Power structure.
Cory, to bad you didn't call Michael Myers last weekend about Obama care and the EB-5 corruption. Now he has a national news outlet that is going to be interviewing him. No promises. We'll see what happens. Cory, you need to focus more on the issues than pushups, partisan politics and you tube production.
yikes.