Hailing from Morehead, KY, Daniel Albert is a senior at Western Kentucky University, and is majoring in History with a minor in Broadcasting.  In high school he participated in Speech and Forensics and attended the Governor’s Scholars Program in Summer 2006.  During his undergraduate career he has been involved with the Honors College as well as working for Housing and Residence Life.  The defining moment in his life came in 2008, when he studied in England for a semester.  After graduation, he hopes to work for his PhD and eventually teach history at the collegiate level.

Constructive Possession of Drugs—knowledge of the presence of a controlled substance on one’s person or property and the ability to gain physical possession of that controlled substance.

Constructive Possession of Alcohol—knowledge of the production or consumption of alcohol that is in violation of the law and the ability to exercise control over that alcohol.  Alcohol in violation of the law refers to alcohol produced or sold without a license, as well as alcohol sold to or consumed by minors.

Possession of Marijuana—knowingly and unlawfully possessing marijuana.

Possession of a Controlled Substance—consists of two degrees.  First degree possession encompasses the possession of a substance containing any quantity of methamphetamine or narcotic Schedule I or II drug.  Second degree possession entails the possession of a controlled Schedule I or II non-narcotic drug, or a Schedule III substance, excluding marijuana, synthetic marijuana, or salvia.

Possession of Alcohol by a Minor—individuals under 21 years of age must not purchase or possess alcoholic beverages, use false identification to purchase or attempt to purchase alcoholic beverages, or enter an establishment where alcoholic beverages are sold, so long as a notification prohibiting such entrance is posted.

Providing Alcohol to a Minor—selling or providing alcohol to a person less than 21 years of age.  This includes purchasing alcohol from a licensed store.

Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor—any action that encourages the illegal behavior of a minor, including providing pornography, alcoholic beverages or drugs, sexual exploitation of a minor, using a minor in a theft, of committing a crime in front of a minor.

Drunken and Disorderly Conduct—a drunken and rude or disorderly person may not come to a public place with the intent to cause public disturbance, including fighting, threatening behavior, and unreasonable noise.

Public Intoxication—appearance in a public place while under the influence of a controlled substance, to the degree of endangering oneself, other persons, property, or causing an unreasonable annoyance to persons in the vicinity.

Drunkenness in a Public Place—appearance in a public place under the influence of alcohol to the degree of endangering oneself, other persons, property, or causing annoyance.

DWI and DUI—synonymous terms that refer to driving after consuming or using drugs and/or alcohol

Sound Ordinance Violation—occurs if one makes or continues to make unreasonably loud noise, dependant upon the time and place the noise is produced.

Disorderly Conduct—public behavior that attempts to annoy or inconvenience, is unreasonably loud, and is hazardous.  Also includes the refusal to obey a public official.

Caitlin Carter is a junior from Big Spring, Ky., double majoring in mass communication and agriculture with a business administration minor. She is a member of the Honors College, Kentucky Derby Festival Princess Program and Society of Professional Journalists. She also serves as an ambassador of the Agriculture Department. In her spare time, Caitlin enjoys volunteering at the local animal shelter, reading and participating in outdoor sports.

Kristen Dixon is a member of WKU’s 2013 graduating class. She is majoring in Broadcast News as well as minoring in Business Administration. Throughout her years as a student Kristen has made it her mission to help others which was made possible by clubs like: Interact, Beta Club, and the National Honor Society. During the end of her eighth-grade year Kristen was awarded the Blue Dolphin Award, which is given to the student who best resembles the school and who is admired by her peers. When she is not in school Kristen volunteers at Elementary Schools to help students with math and reading. Not only has she volunteered but Kristen has also shadowed/interned at WBKI-TV.

Mitchell Grogg is a member of the WKU Class of 2013 from Evansville, Indiana. He is currently pursuing a double major in Broadcasting and Spanish. Mitchell is also a member of WKU’s national championship Speech and Debate team, competing in Extemporaneous Speaking, Impromptu Speaking, and Lincoln Douglas Debate. He is involved in a Hispanic Research Initiative at WKU, which explores ways to reach out educationally to Hispanic youth in Bowling Green. Mitchell also works on the production crew for WKU’s campus newscast, Newschannel 12.

Jacqui Powell will be a junior at Western majoring in Broadcast News. Jacqui’s minor is Political Science, and she hopes to study enough French to be bilingual by the time she graduates. Jacqui joined News Channel 12 in the fall of 2009, but she was no stranger to broadcasting. She has had a radio program on WJCR FM since she was 13. In high school she won over ten first-place broadcasting awards, including the national Robert F. Kennedy High School Broadcast Journalism Award. She produced numerous online packages for the News Enterprise in Elizabethtown, Kentucky along with a mini-documentary that a Kentucky food bank adopted as its official informational video.

Ashton Skates is an upcoming junior majoring in Public Relations. Her minor is Political Science.  In high school, she was highly involved in DECA and competed at the international level. She was also VP of Community Service for FCCLA, a Junior Rotarian, and an anchor for her school’s weekly newscast. Ashton has written for Arete, the WKU Honors College newsletter. She is also very involved in Campus Crusade for Christ, an organization through which she leads a Bible Study for girls a year younger than her. Finally, she is part of a group of people who are currently staring a chapter of Art Feeds on WKU’s campus.

Originally from Shepherdsville, KY, John Sohl is majoring in Broadcast Journalism and will be a junior at WKU in Fall of 2011. He is one of the website managers and worked extensively with the Open Records analysis and statistics. He was the Yearbook Editor at DeSales High School in Louisville, acquiring photoshop and managerial skills. He is also involved at the WKU Catholic Campus Center as chairman of the Spirituality Committee, in which he helps plan retreats and coordinates theological programs. His minor is Theater which he expects to help him in the performance aspect of the news industry.

Jeanine Howard-Cherry serves as an instructor in the School of Journalism and Broadcasting at Western Kentucky University. She teaches Basic News Writing, Electronic Media Writing, Media Law and Ethics, and Basic Radio Production. She has 18-years of professional broadcast experience. Prior to her appointment within the School of Journalism and Broadcasting, Jeanine served as the Assistant News Director of Western’s Public Radio Service. She also produced and anchored the local news segments of Morning Edition, Midday Edition and All Things Considered during her tenure with Western’s Public Radio. In addition, she served as an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Communication where she taught Public Speaking for four semesters.

Before discovering public radio, Jeanine worked for two years as the morning anchor and news producer for WKCT/WDNS in Bowling Green. Jeanine earned a Masters of Arts in Communication from Western Kentucky
University and holds her Baccalaureate Degrees in Broadcasting and Governmen

“I really don’t care about this.”

If I’m being honest, that was my first thought when we were told that we would be pursuing an Open Records project as part of the Fleischaker-Greene Scholars Program. I failed to see what going through a simple governmental procedure would teach us. I had no idea the direction the project would head.

That was over a month ago. I ceased to feel apathetic toward the open records process when the city government started to make us jump through hoops to exercise our rights as citizens.

Section 61.872 of the Open Records law compiled by Scott Varland states that “All public records shall be open for inspection by any person, except as otherwise provided by KRS 61.870.”

Open Records law also states that if a public record is somehow not available; the party requesting the records is to be notified immediately and be informed of a time and place where the records may be inspected, “not to exceed three days from receipt of the application.”

Warren County Justice Center

When our class spoke with Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice Minton, he stated that he feels there is a need for “greater transparency” within the courts.

“Exposure,” Justice Minton said, “is the best disinfectant.”

“Transparent” is not a word that could be used to describe our experience in obtaining open records.

On February 16, 2011, we filed an open records request with the city of Bowling Green, Ky. We originally asked for citations and arrests of 17-23 year old’s for a five-year period.

We also tried to access overnight run reports, but were denied access.

City attorney Gene Harmon responded via email:

“KRS 61.872(6) authorizes public agencies to deny an application for records if it places an unreasonable burden in producing public records and I believe your request could fall into that exemption. However, the City will make an effort to provide you what you have requested.”

After the city’s initial response, we modified our request to eliminate minors and narrowed to the years 2005, 2009 and 2010.

The charges we highlighted in our modified request were:

• Providing alcohol to a minor
• Contributing to the delinquency of a minor
• Drunken/disorderly conduct
• Sound ordinance violations
• Marijuana possession
• Narcotics possession
• Constructive possession of drugs
• Constructive possession of alcohol
• Public intoxication
• Drunkenness in a public place
• DUI/DWI

Our initial objective was to observe patterns in the frequency of these offenses within our specified age range. We knew we would not know the exact direction of the project until we received the records and examined them for trends.

In a breach of procedure, our request was diverted to the city attorney. We sought clarification for why this was done and did not receive any information. Public Information Officer Monica Woods repeatedly declined to be interviewed.

When the city delayed in responding, Professor Cherry contacted the Kentucky Press Association for legal assistance. She was put in contact with James Adams of Louisville.

Adams contacted city attorney Gene Harmon on March 10^th. The Police Department met with Harmon the next day and revealed that they anticipated 4000 records that would need to be redacted by hand. It was then that Adams was told by Harmon that the police department had requested compensation for man hours. Harmon was of the opinion that such a charge was not possible.

Gary A. Raymer Police Headquarters

On Friday, March 9^th, we narrowed the focus to six months from each of the requested years in order to reduce the number of records pulled.

We were also informed that the city does not sort records by age. This fact, however, did not cause our request to fall into the “non-standardized format” category. The Police Department argued that since the files are stored in a private database and not in software such as Microsoft Excel, significant man hours would be required to redact all sensitive information.

Originally, the city charged us $413.56 for 996 citations as well as CDs, Excel documents, personnel charges and pending cases. $298.86 of this was allocated as personnel charges. Attorney Jim Adams successfully negotiated a lower fee of $214 in order to expedite receipt of the records:

“I don’t see how it can be said that Ms. Cherry asked the police department to produce non-standardized documents, within the meaning of the statute.  Also, it appears to me that the Excel documents performed a sorting function and that producing them enabled the city to save a substantial amount of staff time responding to the request.   In light of all of this, I don’t agree that the police department can properly charge Ms. Cherry’s class for staff time for production of Excel documents.”

All told, it took weeks for us to get any form of records in hand. What I thought would be a smooth, simple procedure turned out to be a hard swim through a bureaucratic swamp.

So, how can this case be practically applied?

We’re living it!

In the words of Professor Cherry:

“The practical application is us.”

Our experience with this project makes it clear why it is so important for us to be informed of our rights as citizens and to act on those rights. We may not have thumbed our nose at an absolute monarchy and drafted up a Declaration of Independence, but we did something important. We got a tiny taste of how Washington and Adams felt when they stood their ground and saw that their individual liberties were granted. For perhaps the first time in our young lives, we experienced what it truly means to be an American.