November 6, 2025 • 17 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Eight five right now. But you have KCD talk station
Happy Thursday. Thursday's mean if you're interested in Empower You
America Class or Empower You American Classes, you get taken
the Power of America Class seven pm thanks to Dan
Reagan old fram USA, formerly owner and originator of the
Empower Youth Seminar series as always tonight in addition to
an amazing seminar on it's kind of like astronomy Tour
(00:27):
of the Universe. You are here, You've got to be
at the Empower U Seminars Studios three hundred Great Oaks
Drive to check this one out. You're gonna get a
tour of the entire universe. You stop at the Moon,
you go out and you inspect all the planets and
apparently like a light speed simulation going out to the Intertellar
space to visit the universe and all the galaxies and
just appreciate the insanity of how big the universe is.
(00:48):
That should be an amazing class with Dan Regas, who's
one of the renowned experts on such matters. But you're
also going to get Kurt Hartman. I love Kurt Hartman
and everything he does. Attorney at the Finny law firm
concentrates on commercial and constitutional litigation, as well as public
interest litigation. You may have heard his name come up
in connection with local government issues. Welcome back, Kurt Hartman.
(01:08):
I appreciate you coming on the program again. It's great
to hear from you.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Sir Brian. Always great to be with you.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Sunshine Laws and according to materials, and I'm anxious for
you to explain to my listeners at least a little
insight into what you're gonna be talking about tonight. They
are under attack and it might be more difficult for
the general public to get records. There are laws on
the books. The problem is it seems to be more
theory versus practice. Let me throw this at you, Kurt.
I can issue a Freedom of Information Act request. I
(01:35):
can issue a request for government documents pursuing to the
laws you're going to be talking about, the Sunshine Laws.
But quite often those responsible for producing them ignore you,
and it goes by the wayside, and you wait weeks
and months they have passed the deadline for which to respond.
Then it seems to me you almost have to have
a bankroll to pay lawyers to go to court to
enforce a law. That's on the books that tells them
(01:55):
they have the obligation to produce the stuff in the
first place. It's gonna get worse.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
It's gonna get worse, yes, and has gotten worse, uh,
you know, by both a little bit because of the
General Assembly's amendments to the Public Records Act as well
as a few decisions from the House Supreme Court, you know,
instead of you know, the Sunshine Laws of their openness transparency. Uh,
you know, foundation principle is that your public records are
(02:23):
the people's records, and that they belong to the people,
and that the public officials are simply trustees or custodians
of them for the benefit of the public. But because
it's a matter of state will, the General Assembly can
put you know, and and they constantly, it seems like
each General is something putting more and more exemptions or
hurdles or obstacles if you will, uh that favor of
(02:44):
the government and undermine transparency. You know, just feel the things.
And you know, we're just gonna talk briefly about it
tonight as well, because I think this astronomy thing has
really got to be the neat part about it about
my presentation, but to give you an example. I think
one of the things I'm really really disappointed in is
(03:05):
just earlier this year they amended to state the Public
Records Act with respect to getting your videos from police officers,
body cameras or cruiser videos. It used to be used
to be able to put in a request and say, hey,
I want to get the body camera for this incident
or that incident. Right, yeah, you can still get them,
but now they have said, you know what a local
(03:27):
law enforcement can authorize is authorized to charge you up
to seven hundred and fifty dollars for the time and
expense it takes to prepare go through redact that video.
And so you know, if the average person has an
interaction with law enforcement and just says, hey I need
to see the video, want that video of my that's
(03:48):
stop with the police officers. The department can say, hey,
before we do it, you got to pay us x
dollars up to seven hundred and fifty that we think
it's going to take to get that video ready for you. So,
for example, you know the infamous brawl downtown right right,
you know there were body cameras. When the priest finally responded,
(04:13):
you put a request in and you know before that
it was like, hey, we want to charge you for it.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Well wait real quickly, right, And I did, and.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
They did charge charge. They charged the news media when
the news even the news media went in for it
and they said, hey, in that case, they only charged
them like twenty dollars plus or minus because they said, hey,
we can do it pretty quickly. But again, it's this
principle that hey, these are people's records. You know, this
is accountability, this is oversight.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Kurt Hartman, let me ask you this. I am free
as a citizen to go to the public records that
are in the Clerk of Courts office. I can review
them there. If I want a copy of them, I
just pay to have a copy. May right. It's like
the old xerox days. Put a diamond, you got a copy.
But I can view them there. Why not just make
the damn video available to the public at the police
station or at some viewing area. They can look at
(05:05):
it there and if they want to take a copy
home with them, then let them. But more fundamentally, what's
with the redaction thing? If this is a police officer
in public doing the public servant's duty, why would I
want a redacted video, and upon what basis would they
take something out of it?
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Kurt Well, the redaction and usually what they do on
the redactions of videos is they just blow a part
of it. It may be somebody giving their social security
Usually it's like a social security number. Okay, somebody gives you,
I guess your name, your social security number, or they
have the police monitor in the vehicles. You know, they're
looking at that to run somebody license play or somebody's ID,
(05:43):
and the video captures the information on the screen. So
that's the predominance of it. So there may be a
few statements that are made. There may be some confidential
information that you want redactive. So it's not really that
bad in terms of redacting the videos, but it's like,
you know, the time to go track down videos, try
time to review it, the time to listen to it
to make sure somebody doesn't tell tell a law enforcement Also,
(06:07):
here's my social security number, go you go check me out.
They can charge you now the time and their expense
for preparing that. So you got you know, something like that,
you know, and it's both complete. You know, the video
is not only with law enforcement, but if you go
to the prosecutors and say hey, I want that video.
The prosecutors can also charge you for it. The other
(06:31):
other interesting thing was they they the General Assembly put
an edition in where they exempted or said hey, you
can't get information of our communications members or communications with
other members or staff. So when these legislators are saying, hey,
dear colleague, please support this legislation, dear colleague, please do
(06:53):
this or that, you can't get those in. That's those
correspondence until the General Assembly is no longer in session.
What's the base thinks for going on while this information
is being exchanged amongst members of the General Assembly. Nope,
you can't see any of that.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Well, it's at the point in time when you really
critically need it before decisions are made. I don't want
to review something after the fact, after they've already enacted
some legislation or done done the work and it's all
over with. The real time reporting seems to be necessary
for the public goods, so we can help, you know,
it will inform us and will allow us to give
an opportunity to or elected officials about which direction we
want them to go.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, you know, especially when you think about the capital budget,
the budget or the breaking budget or the capital budget.
You know, who's putting on who's advocating to put this
line lineament of you know, a special deal or whatever.
You know, Yeah, you can find out about it two
years later or a year later after the General Assembly
you know is no longer in session.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yeah, oh hey, we just found about about Operation Arctic
Frosts that a parent was going on for a whole
time under Trump administration, violating everybody's constitutional rights. But it
takes time to get out the information. But what the
what is the motivation behind this cracking down on publicly
available information? What's driving this? Because it's going the opposite direction, Kurt,
from where I would want it to go, because I'm
in favor of giving us everything that we want, since
(08:11):
we're paying for all the work that they do and
they're impacting our lives every day.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah, I just think I think it is more deference,
you know, to to the government. That government, you know,
and the government at the Prostitutors Association or you know,
complain about all we're getting in and data with these
public records requests. You're distracting quote unquote distracting us from
doing our job. Well, part of their job is getting
(08:39):
information to the public. And I think that they've developed
this lack of appreciation. You know, then that is part
of their job. Well and so and so, and the
general Assembly, you know, reacts says, okay, fine, we'll help
you here. You know. It's almost a death of a
thousand cuts. Yes, you know, okay, this may not be
(09:03):
a big thing. That may not be a big thing,
you know. I mean, you know. Another thing they exempt
now are the work schedules, you know from what they
call is what they call designated public workers, but essentially
it's law enforcement officers, you know, et cetera. You know,
And I'll tell you I've done requests before to say, hey,
I'd like to see, you know, the schedule for who
is on duty, you know, two weeks ago or five
(09:25):
weeks ago. That's now, ZEMP. You can't get the work
schedules for law enforcement huh. You know, I mean I
can understand a prospectively, you know, something going forward. I
don't want to see who's on duty next week.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Right right, right right. And these trying times we live
in the dosing. The whole idea of iman target law
enforcement officers, specific ones, perhaps targeted knowing where they're going
to be in at what time. It's a little bit
or well and creepy that that might be readily available.
And I understand around the margins, but not a broad
brush approach to this, just saying no, you cannot have
that under any circumstances, and you cannot.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Have who was on duty four weeks ago.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
And yeah, that doesn't make any sense either because that
could be critical information.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
But again it's this react I think it's reactionary to
special interest within the government, you know, I mean, but
if you think about it, and it's amazing. You know,
there are all these lobbying type organizations, right yeah, and
some of them are paid for by taxpayer dollars. You know,
the Ohio Municipal League, the Ohio Taxpayer Association, Prosecutors Association.
(10:30):
You know, they are all lobbying type groups up in
Columbus that are formed and organized and consist of the
government officials. And it's being paid for by our tax dollars.
So you have our tax dollars lobbying to undermine you know,
the public interest and the general public. We're paying, we're
paying to be lobbying against. But you know, nobody pays
(10:52):
to lobby for the individuals.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Well, then there's the other component of kind of the
springboard for our conversation on this. There are on the
books which allow us to have these records. You're pointing
that out. They're changing them to make it more difficult. Fine,
But when they don't even comply with the law on
the book in any form, and you got to go
to court to get them to an issue there to
produce the documents you've asked for, they're inviting the public,
the taxpayer dollars, to have to pay for litigation expenses
(11:17):
on their side of the ledger because they refuse to
do the job they're supposed to do it hand over
the information. Shouldn't there be some sort of harsher harsher
penalty for those who refuse? How do you how do
you bring about compliance without litigation? Kurt?
Speaker 2 (11:32):
In a certain sense, you can't, you know, I mean, yeah,
the public office is what I'm slow wrong. I mean
you talked about, you know, going down to the Clerk
of Court's office. Right, Hey, I want to go see
a court record, I can just go down there, get
to look at it, and if I want a copy,
give me a copy. I've got a lawsuit over that case.
I'm actually suing the Hamilton County Clerk of Courts because
their office refuse to provide and allow the inspection. Just
(11:54):
somebody to go in and see a court case. You know.
That's because and dealt with the if you remember when
the city of Cincinnati decided they wanted to you know,
charge criminally. You know the victim, the guy, the.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Guy who got beaten up the Russian.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Yeah right, the Russian go down, say hey, we want
to see that filing. What did the city file? And
the clerk of course was no, we're not going to
let you see it. There's a motion to seal that case.
So until the judge decides, well what about the judge
decided to seal it or not, didn't matter. We're there
saying we want to inspect it. They said no, So
we had to sue it. We're suing them over and
(12:31):
we've got litigation going over there. There's something that's basically
as a court record, and it's just this attitude, you know,
and it's not a partisan attitude. I think you get
it from both sides of the whisle. Oh yeah, And
so you know you're right if the option is the litigation.
The thing is, you know you talk about hiring attorneys,
and you got to hire attorneys. Now, if you win
(12:52):
the court, can you know, usually will will award you
your attorney fees or at least some of your attorney fees.
That seems to be the option they given. That's the
only option you really have. I mean, you know, the
concept of the philosophy is, you know, the remedy is elections.
You know, if somebody is doing something, not performing their
public office right or appropriate, the remedy is vote them
(13:15):
out at the next election. But I hate to say,
I mean, if Tuesday Todd is anything, it's like, you know,
the people will just but you know, a majority of them,
it appears in the city of Cincinnati will just follow
follow sheeplex whatever. You know, Yeah, it's the Democrats slate card.
I'll just blindly voted and this, you know.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
But on Tuesday, You're right, I understand that, understand that,
and that quite often is the only remedy we were
left with in spite of the fact that it doesn't
always work to our advantage. But the world keeps going on.
Litigation continues. These issues can't wait for elections to resolve themselves.
They have an obligation to produce information. You need it
now as a part of maybe the defense of your
(13:54):
client or some other issue in a civil litigation. Give
us the damn information, and.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
You know you try it, but you know, you know,
there was one of the decisions. Chief Justice Kennedy said,
you know, sometimes when you get the information is just
as important as what the information is. But unfortunately, the
next time I see the Chief Justice, I'm going to
kind of you know, vendor air a little bit. You
follow these lawsuits at the Supreme Court to get these records,
it takes them a year to issue.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Decision exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
You know, and that doesn't do any good for anybody either.
You know. It just seems the decisions coming out from
the court making longer than they have historically and definitely
longer than they should. And so, yeah, you get your
victory at the end of the day, You get your
victory a year from now saying yeah, you are entitled
to those records. But then but then you turn around
(14:44):
the next stage time that the issue, similar issue arises.
The governments they know they can slow roll you on
public records.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Happens time and time.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I saw that a lot with the city of something else.
You know, I've got numerous requests into the City of
Cincinnati on behalf of clients city slow rolls we're looking at.
We've got to review it. I mean, even some basic records.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Well, this is this is not just a local or
stay phenomenon. This happens all the time in the federal
government level, perhaps even more. I've had Congressman Weinstrop in
here talking to you know, he's in he's in some
meeting or hearing about some issue, and he asks the
intelligence community or whoever's in front of him for the information.
They basically say, no, we're not going to give.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
It to you.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
I mean, this is he's on behalf of the American taxpayers,
trying to get to the bottom of answers and questions.
The information is out there, and they blanket just say basically,
go to hell, I'm not gonna give it to you.
This is the world we live in. And I find
that as offensive as it can possibly be. Kurt, is
this done and baked into the cake? Or do we
have time to go and get in touch with our
elected officials? Where are we with in terms of these
(15:44):
open records and open Meetings Act reforms.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Well, those reforms have already gone in you know, I mean,
I know in terms of restricting the General Assembly in
terms of that, you know, being able to charge up
to seven hundred and fifty dollars. You know from videos.
I knew the newspaper Association and actually very critical of it.
You know, I was crying it while was being considered.
But that those are those arguments apparently set on death fears. Well,
(16:10):
you know, at the end of the day, the problem,
I think the General Assembly realizes this is not the
trans this aspect of openness and transparency is not a
priority for voters. You know, voters are more going to
be more interested than their public safety, the economy, their taxes.
You know, if this was on a pecking motor list,
it's going to be very low on that list.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah, it's a weed dweller issue, Kurt, I'll concede. But
that's why we have you to look out for our
best interest and keep looking at where the weeds are
and what the problems are with them. You know, it's
kind of funny and comical. It's adding insult to injury
seven hundred and fifty bucks. That's after you litigate and
win the litigation to get them to produce the documents.
Then you're going to be whacked with a seven hundred
and fifty dollars charge right.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Well, actually, actually probab probably wouldn't have a case until
you say, here's my money.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
They don't even have to prepare the video until you
pay whatever their estimate is that it's going to cost
pay up front.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
We will get around to it sometime, maybe a year
from now. Kurt Hartman is gonna be talking all about
this tonight in the Take twenty segment of the Empower
Youth Seminar, which will include a fascinating tour of the universe.
Takes place at three hundred Great Oaks Drive in studio
or you can log in from home, but I think
you will certainly benefit from being there for the fascinating
tour of the universe, and of course you can ask
Greg our Kurt a few questions. Kurt, thank you so
(17:27):
much for your time this morning and for taking on
this task tonight. I hope you have a really well
attended seminar tonight.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Great. Thank you, Brian.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Keep up your great work brother, You're really helping out
Eight five right now. But you have KCD talk station
Happy Thursday. Thursday's mean if you're interested in Empower You
America Class or Empower You American Classes, you get taken
the Power of America Class seven pm thanks to Dan
Reagan old fram USA, formerly owner and originator of the
Empower Youth Seminar series as always tonight in addition to
an amazing seminar on it's kind of like astronomy Tour
(00:27):
of the Universe. You are here, You've got to be
at the Empower U Seminars Studios three hundred Great Oaks
Drive to check this one out. You're gonna get a
tour of the entire universe. You stop at the Moon,
you go out and you inspect all the planets and
apparently like a light speed simulation going out to the Intertellar
space to visit the universe and all the galaxies and
just appreciate the insanity of how big the universe is.
(00:48):
That should be an amazing class with Dan Regas, who's
one of the renowned experts on such matters. But you're
also going to get Kurt Hartman. I love Kurt Hartman
and everything he does. Attorney at the Finny law firm
concentrates on commercial and constitutional litigation, as well as public
interest litigation. You may have heard his name come up
in connection with local government issues. Welcome back, Kurt Hartman.
(01:08):
I appreciate you coming on the program again. It's great
to hear from you.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Sir Brian. Always great to be with you.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Sunshine Laws and according to materials, and I'm anxious for
you to explain to my listeners at least a little
insight into what you're gonna be talking about tonight. They
are under attack and it might be more difficult for
the general public to get records. There are laws on
the books. The problem is it seems to be more
theory versus practice. Let me throw this at you, Kurt.
I can issue a Freedom of Information Act request. I
(01:35):
can issue a request for government documents pursuing to the
laws you're going to be talking about, the Sunshine Laws.
But quite often those responsible for producing them ignore you,
and it goes by the wayside, and you wait weeks
and months they have passed the deadline for which to respond.
Then it seems to me you almost have to have
a bankroll to pay lawyers to go to court to
enforce a law. That's on the books that tells them
(01:55):
they have the obligation to produce the stuff in the
first place. It's gonna get worse.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
It's gonna get worse, yes, and has gotten worse, uh,
you know, by both a little bit because of the
General Assembly's amendments to the Public Records Act as well
as a few decisions from the House Supreme Court, you know,
instead of you know, the Sunshine Laws of their openness transparency. Uh,
you know, foundation principle is that your public records are
(02:23):
the people's records, and that they belong to the people,
and that the public officials are simply trustees or custodians
of them for the benefit of the public. But because
it's a matter of state will, the General Assembly can
put you know, and and they constantly, it seems like
each General is something putting more and more exemptions or
hurdles or obstacles if you will, uh that favor of
(02:44):
the government and undermine transparency. You know, just feel the things.
And you know, we're just gonna talk briefly about it
tonight as well, because I think this astronomy thing has
really got to be the neat part about it about
my presentation, but to give you an example. I think
one of the things I'm really really disappointed in is
(03:05):
just earlier this year they amended to state the Public
Records Act with respect to getting your videos from police officers,
body cameras or cruiser videos. It used to be used
to be able to put in a request and say, hey,
I want to get the body camera for this incident
or that incident. Right, yeah, you can still get them,
but now they have said, you know what a local
(03:27):
law enforcement can authorize is authorized to charge you up
to seven hundred and fifty dollars for the time and
expense it takes to prepare go through redact that video.
And so you know, if the average person has an
interaction with law enforcement and just says, hey I need
to see the video, want that video of my that's
(03:48):
stop with the police officers. The department can say, hey,
before we do it, you got to pay us x
dollars up to seven hundred and fifty that we think
it's going to take to get that video ready for you. So,
for example, you know the infamous brawl downtown right right,
you know there were body cameras. When the priest finally responded,
(04:13):
you put a request in and you know before that
it was like, hey, we want to charge you for it.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Well wait real quickly, right, And I did, and.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
They did charge charge. They charged the news media when
the news even the news media went in for it
and they said, hey, in that case, they only charged
them like twenty dollars plus or minus because they said, hey,
we can do it pretty quickly. But again, it's this
principle that hey, these are people's records. You know, this
is accountability, this is oversight.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Kurt Hartman, let me ask you this. I am free
as a citizen to go to the public records that
are in the Clerk of Courts office. I can review
them there. If I want a copy of them, I
just pay to have a copy. May right. It's like
the old xerox days. Put a diamond, you got a copy.
But I can view them there. Why not just make
the damn video available to the public at the police
station or at some viewing area. They can look at
(05:05):
it there and if they want to take a copy
home with them, then let them. But more fundamentally, what's
with the redaction thing? If this is a police officer
in public doing the public servant's duty, why would I
want a redacted video, and upon what basis would they
take something out of it?
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Kurt Well, the redaction and usually what they do on
the redactions of videos is they just blow a part
of it. It may be somebody giving their social security
Usually it's like a social security number. Okay, somebody gives you,
I guess your name, your social security number, or they
have the police monitor in the vehicles. You know, they're
looking at that to run somebody license play or somebody's ID,
(05:43):
and the video captures the information on the screen. So
that's the predominance of it. So there may be a
few statements that are made. There may be some confidential
information that you want redactive. So it's not really that
bad in terms of redacting the videos, but it's like,
you know, the time to go track down videos, try
time to review it, the time to listen to it
to make sure somebody doesn't tell tell a law enforcement Also,
(06:07):
here's my social security number, go you go check me out.
They can charge you now the time and their expense
for preparing that. So you got you know, something like that,
you know, and it's both complete. You know, the video
is not only with law enforcement, but if you go
to the prosecutors and say hey, I want that video.
The prosecutors can also charge you for it. The other
(06:31):
other interesting thing was they they the General Assembly put
an edition in where they exempted or said hey, you
can't get information of our communications members or communications with
other members or staff. So when these legislators are saying, hey,
dear colleague, please support this legislation, dear colleague, please do
(06:53):
this or that, you can't get those in. That's those
correspondence until the General Assembly is no longer in session.
What's the base thinks for going on while this information
is being exchanged amongst members of the General Assembly. Nope,
you can't see any of that.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Well, it's at the point in time when you really
critically need it before decisions are made. I don't want
to review something after the fact, after they've already enacted
some legislation or done done the work and it's all
over with. The real time reporting seems to be necessary
for the public goods, so we can help, you know,
it will inform us and will allow us to give
an opportunity to or elected officials about which direction we
want them to go.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, you know, especially when you think about the capital budget,
the budget or the breaking budget or the capital budget.
You know, who's putting on who's advocating to put this
line lineament of you know, a special deal or whatever.
You know, Yeah, you can find out about it two
years later or a year later after the General Assembly
you know is no longer in session.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yeah, oh hey, we just found about about Operation Arctic
Frosts that a parent was going on for a whole
time under Trump administration, violating everybody's constitutional rights. But it
takes time to get out the information. But what the
what is the motivation behind this cracking down on publicly
available information? What's driving this? Because it's going the opposite direction, Kurt,
from where I would want it to go, because I'm
in favor of giving us everything that we want, since
(08:11):
we're paying for all the work that they do and
they're impacting our lives every day.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah, I just think I think it is more deference,
you know, to to the government. That government, you know,
and the government at the Prostitutors Association or you know,
complain about all we're getting in and data with these
public records requests. You're distracting quote unquote distracting us from
doing our job. Well, part of their job is getting
(08:39):
information to the public. And I think that they've developed
this lack of appreciation. You know, then that is part
of their job. Well and so and so, and the
general Assembly, you know, reacts says, okay, fine, we'll help
you here. You know. It's almost a death of a
thousand cuts. Yes, you know, okay, this may not be
(09:03):
a big thing. That may not be a big thing,
you know. I mean, you know. Another thing they exempt
now are the work schedules, you know from what they
call is what they call designated public workers, but essentially
it's law enforcement officers, you know, et cetera. You know,
And I'll tell you I've done requests before to say, hey,
I'd like to see, you know, the schedule for who
is on duty, you know, two weeks ago or five
(09:25):
weeks ago. That's now, ZEMP. You can't get the work
schedules for law enforcement huh. You know, I mean I
can understand a prospectively, you know, something going forward. I
don't want to see who's on duty next week.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Right right, right right. And these trying times we live
in the dosing. The whole idea of iman target law
enforcement officers, specific ones, perhaps targeted knowing where they're going
to be in at what time. It's a little bit
or well and creepy that that might be readily available.
And I understand around the margins, but not a broad
brush approach to this, just saying no, you cannot have
that under any circumstances, and you cannot.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Have who was on duty four weeks ago.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
And yeah, that doesn't make any sense either because that
could be critical information.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
But again it's this react I think it's reactionary to
special interest within the government, you know, I mean, but
if you think about it, and it's amazing. You know,
there are all these lobbying type organizations, right yeah, and
some of them are paid for by taxpayer dollars. You know,
the Ohio Municipal League, the Ohio Taxpayer Association, Prosecutors Association.
(10:30):
You know, they are all lobbying type groups up in
Columbus that are formed and organized and consist of the
government officials. And it's being paid for by our tax dollars.
So you have our tax dollars lobbying to undermine you know,
the public interest and the general public. We're paying, we're
paying to be lobbying against. But you know, nobody pays
(10:52):
to lobby for the individuals.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Well, then there's the other component of kind of the
springboard for our conversation on this. There are on the
books which allow us to have these records. You're pointing
that out. They're changing them to make it more difficult. Fine,
But when they don't even comply with the law on
the book in any form, and you got to go
to court to get them to an issue there to
produce the documents you've asked for, they're inviting the public,
the taxpayer dollars, to have to pay for litigation expenses
(11:17):
on their side of the ledger because they refuse to
do the job they're supposed to do it hand over
the information. Shouldn't there be some sort of harsher harsher
penalty for those who refuse? How do you how do
you bring about compliance without litigation? Kurt?
Speaker 2 (11:32):
In a certain sense, you can't, you know, I mean, yeah,
the public office is what I'm slow wrong. I mean
you talked about, you know, going down to the Clerk
of Court's office. Right, Hey, I want to go see
a court record, I can just go down there, get
to look at it, and if I want a copy,
give me a copy. I've got a lawsuit over that case.
I'm actually suing the Hamilton County Clerk of Courts because
their office refuse to provide and allow the inspection. Just
(11:54):
somebody to go in and see a court case. You know.
That's because and dealt with the if you remember when
the city of Cincinnati decided they wanted to you know,
charge criminally. You know the victim, the guy, the.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Guy who got beaten up the Russian.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Yeah right, the Russian go down, say hey, we want
to see that filing. What did the city file? And
the clerk of course was no, we're not going to
let you see it. There's a motion to seal that case.
So until the judge decides, well what about the judge
decided to seal it or not, didn't matter. We're there
saying we want to inspect it. They said no, So
we had to sue it. We're suing them over and
(12:31):
we've got litigation going over there. There's something that's basically
as a court record, and it's just this attitude, you know,
and it's not a partisan attitude. I think you get
it from both sides of the whisle. Oh yeah, And
so you know you're right if the option is the litigation.
The thing is, you know you talk about hiring attorneys,
and you got to hire attorneys. Now, if you win
(12:52):
the court, can you know, usually will will award you
your attorney fees or at least some of your attorney fees.
That seems to be the option they given. That's the
only option you really have. I mean, you know, the
concept of the philosophy is, you know, the remedy is elections.
You know, if somebody is doing something, not performing their
public office right or appropriate, the remedy is vote them
(13:15):
out at the next election. But I hate to say,
I mean, if Tuesday Todd is anything, it's like, you know,
the people will just but you know, a majority of them,
it appears in the city of Cincinnati will just follow
follow sheeplex whatever. You know, Yeah, it's the Democrats slate card.
I'll just blindly voted and this, you know.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
But on Tuesday, You're right, I understand that, understand that,
and that quite often is the only remedy we were
left with in spite of the fact that it doesn't
always work to our advantage. But the world keeps going on.
Litigation continues. These issues can't wait for elections to resolve themselves.
They have an obligation to produce information. You need it
now as a part of maybe the defense of your
(13:54):
client or some other issue in a civil litigation. Give
us the damn information, and.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
You know you try it, but you know, you know,
there was one of the decisions. Chief Justice Kennedy said,
you know, sometimes when you get the information is just
as important as what the information is. But unfortunately, the
next time I see the Chief Justice, I'm going to
kind of you know, vendor air a little bit. You
follow these lawsuits at the Supreme Court to get these records,
it takes them a year to issue.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Decision exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
You know, and that doesn't do any good for anybody either.
You know. It just seems the decisions coming out from
the court making longer than they have historically and definitely
longer than they should. And so, yeah, you get your
victory at the end of the day, You get your
victory a year from now saying yeah, you are entitled
to those records. But then but then you turn around
(14:44):
the next stage time that the issue, similar issue arises.
The governments they know they can slow roll you on
public records.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Happens time and time.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I saw that a lot with the city of something else.
You know, I've got numerous requests into the City of
Cincinnati on behalf of clients city slow rolls we're looking at.
We've got to review it. I mean, even some basic records.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Well, this is this is not just a local or
stay phenomenon. This happens all the time in the federal
government level, perhaps even more. I've had Congressman Weinstrop in
here talking to you know, he's in he's in some
meeting or hearing about some issue, and he asks the
intelligence community or whoever's in front of him for the information.
They basically say, no, we're not going to give.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
It to you.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
I mean, this is he's on behalf of the American taxpayers,
trying to get to the bottom of answers and questions.
The information is out there, and they blanket just say basically,
go to hell, I'm not gonna give it to you.
This is the world we live in. And I find
that as offensive as it can possibly be. Kurt, is
this done and baked into the cake? Or do we
have time to go and get in touch with our
elected officials? Where are we with in terms of these
(15:44):
open records and open Meetings Act reforms.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Well, those reforms have already gone in you know, I mean,
I know in terms of restricting the General Assembly in
terms of that, you know, being able to charge up
to seven hundred and fifty dollars. You know from videos.
I knew the newspaper Association and actually very critical of it.
You know, I was crying it while was being considered.
But that those are those arguments apparently set on death fears. Well,
(16:10):
you know, at the end of the day, the problem,
I think the General Assembly realizes this is not the
trans this aspect of openness and transparency is not a
priority for voters. You know, voters are more going to
be more interested than their public safety, the economy, their taxes.
You know, if this was on a pecking motor list,
it's going to be very low on that list.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah, it's a weed dweller issue, Kurt, I'll concede. But
that's why we have you to look out for our
best interest and keep looking at where the weeds are
and what the problems are with them. You know, it's
kind of funny and comical. It's adding insult to injury
seven hundred and fifty bucks. That's after you litigate and
win the litigation to get them to produce the documents.
Then you're going to be whacked with a seven hundred
and fifty dollars charge right.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Well, actually, actually probab probably wouldn't have a case until
you say, here's my money.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
They don't even have to prepare the video until you
pay whatever their estimate is that it's going to cost
pay up front.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
We will get around to it sometime, maybe a year
from now. Kurt Hartman is gonna be talking all about
this tonight in the Take twenty segment of the Empower
Youth Seminar, which will include a fascinating tour of the universe.
Takes place at three hundred Great Oaks Drive in studio
or you can log in from home, but I think
you will certainly benefit from being there for the fascinating
tour of the universe, and of course you can ask
Greg our Kurt a few questions. Kurt, thank you so
(17:27):
much for your time this morning and for taking on
this task tonight. I hope you have a really well
attended seminar tonight.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Great. Thank you, Brian.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Keep up your great work brother, You're really helping out
Brian Thomas News
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