From HMG Executive and Editorial Staff
Hilliary Media Group LLC, doing business as the Southwest Ledger, filed a lawsuit against the City of Lawton and City Councilman Jay Burk alleging violations of the state’s Open Records Act.
The lawsuit was filed April 21 in Comanche County District Court.
Hilliary Media Group owns two newspapers: The Southwest Ledger and The Chronicle, which was incorrectly identified by The Lawton Constitution as the “Elgin Chronicle” in an item posted on social media.
We filed suit because we have not received certain records requested from the city, specifically, communications on Councilman Burk’s personal telephone that pertain to, “His activities in an official government capacity as a member of the City Council of Lawton and any related committee appointments…”
On March 31 and again on April 1, Hilliary Media Group and the Southwest Ledger requested, “Any communications, including, but not limited to, cell phone call logs, text messages, e-mails (with attachments), or other electronic communications sent or received by Jay Burk between January 1, 2021, to March 31, 2021,” that involved his duties as a City Council member.
The city of Lawton on April 7 acknowledged receipt of the March 31 and April 1 records requests. On April 15, the city denied our requests for Councilman Burk’s communications on his personal cell phone, stating that such records were not in possession or control of the City.
The City did provide a U.S. Cellular bill that showed phone calls to and from Councilman Burk’s city-issued cell phone.
After the City’s denial, we requested copies of text messages on Burk’s city-issued telephone, too.
The City of Lawton replied that it had released all available records and reported it was not in possession of the requested text messages, even on Councilman Burk’s city-issued cell phone.
Hilliary Media Group and the Southwest Ledger contend that the Oklahoma Open Records Act entitles them — and the citizens of Lawton — to “prompt, reasonable access to the records” outlined in the March 31 and April 1 requests.
Subsequently, we were notified late Friday, April 23, by Lawton’s City Attorney that Councilman Burk presented at least one of his telephones to the Lawton Police Department for a data dump that produced 17 gigabytes of information.
That is encouraging news. Nevertheless, our lawsuit will not be withdrawn until or unless we have received and reviewed the public records and are satisfied the records provided fulfill our request.