News
	Opinion
	Project '99
	Charts / Data
	Links

Send us your comments

By Rebecca Sissom

THE MORNING NEWS • RSISSOM@NWAONLINE.NET

LOWELL — A Lowell resident asked the City Council on Tuesday night why the city didn’t respond correctly to his Freedom of Information Act request.

Ronald Breland told the City Council that he had requested copies of tickets issued by city engineering technician David Thomas over the span of his two years in service to the city.

Breland said he was supplied instead with copies of tickets that Thomas wrote in his capacity as code-enforcement officer.

Breland said the point of his request was to show that Thomas gives preferential treatment to some residents by giving them verbal warnings before issuing them citations, allowing them to correct the violations before having to pay for a citation.

City Attorney Stephen Lisle told Breland the request was not met the way Breland had wished because Lisle didn’t understand parts of the request.

“We copied every ticket that we could think of that Mr. Thomas had ever written,” Lisle said. He said the city understood the FOI request to center around Thomas’s code-enforcement duties, not his capacity as engineering technician.

“If you make an FOI request, we have to understand it,” Lisle said.

Thomas defended his position by telling the council that people he issues tickets to are not required, by city ordinance, to receive prior warning from him.

Breland said he wants Thomas’s procedure for issuing tickets to be the same for all residents. The city’s current ordinance, that pertains to issuing citations, is adequate for that purpose, Lisle said.

“I don’t think we’re treating anybody unfairly,” he said. “I think the spirit of the ordinance we have now is to accomplish that same goal.”

When Alderman Bob Robertson, whom Thomas has issued tickets, became angry with Lisle, former alderman candidate Eric Haussermann reminded the council that “one of the things that we need to talk about is cooperation.”

The issue continued the tension between Thomas and some council members that began when Mayor Martha Brown proposed a 13.6-percent salary increase for Thomas in the 2001 budget.

Instead, aldermen approved a 5-percent increase, which will bring Thomas’s salary to $38,808 per year.

Also Tuesday, the council agreed to continue operating under the city’s current budget guidelines until the 2001 budget is approved in January.