Board of Education
In a response filed in Jefferson County Circuit Court on Monday, the Vestavia Hills Board of Education and the city of Vestavia Hills denied violating the Open Records Act in a case involving two Vestavia Hills parents.
The response follows a lawsuit filed Feb. 17 by Brian Malcolm and Watts Ueltschey, who both claim the city and board failed to respond properly to their requests for what they believe are public records under the Alabama Open Records Act.
In separate but largely similar filings, both entities claimed that due to neither the board nor the city having authority over the other, and the state’s legal requirement that public business only be done in open meetings -- not via electronic communication such as email -- emails between board members and between board members and city council members do not constitute public records.
“The documents that do not record public business transactions are the documents that are not public writings and referred to by the Supreme Court in the Stone case as, “This is not to say, however, that any time a public official keeps a record, though not required by
law, it falls within the purview of §36-12-40,’” board attorney Mark Boardman wrote in his response.
Malcolm and Ueltschey have both requested public records including emails between board members, Superintendent Todd Freeman and members of the City Council, among other requests. While Malcolm said he was allowed a portion of his request, pertaining to Freeman’s emails, he was not given the rest of his request, nor was he allowed to make copies of the documents.
In his response, Boardman said the state’s Open Meetings Act makes it “crystal clear” that public business must not be done via email and that emails between board members do not constitute a meeting. As such, emails do not constitute public records, he said.
The Vestavia Voice will continue to follow this story and provide updates at vestaviavoice.com.
