By Mike Ray
Southwest Ledger
LAWTON – A seemingly routine question about public records led to the disclosure recently that multiple ‘Open Records’ requestswere submitted by individuals associated with KSWO-TV seekingemails sent to and from Lawton’s mayor – which could have cost $67,000 to process – as well as emails sent to and from the Lawton City Council Relations liaison, and several FISTA documents.
In addition, Southwest Ledger confirmed that Open Records requests were submitted to Comanche County for documents about the Westwin Elements plant and records from the Comanche County Industrial Development Authority.
Eyes and ears perked up during the Lawton City Council meeting May 27 when it was revealed that it could have cost local residents an estimated $67,000 to comply fully with the first Open Records request that KSWO-TV “investigative reporter” Seth Marsicano sent to City Hall.
The Ledger filed an Open Records request last week for, and received a copy of, the Public Records Request that Marsicano filed with the city on Feb. 24. In that petition he wrote, “I am requesting all email exchanges sent to and from Lawton Mayor Stan Booker’s email between the dates of January 1, 2024, to February 24, 2025.”
The request for every email the mayor sent or received during a 14-month period “was worded very broadly,” Lawton City Clerk Donalynn Blazek-Scherler said. Multiple sources told the Ledger that the request was basically a “fishing expedition” because Marsicano did not specify what he was looking for in those emails.
The city clerk said she “reached out” to an implementation consultant with CivicPlus, the vendor for the city’s “NextRequest” open records software, “because the system would start processing a few documents tied to” Marsicano’s Open Records request “and then it would freeze.”
When the CivicPlus representative “looked into it on his end, he told me it was the largest request he had ever seen,” Blazek-Scherler told the Ledger. “According to him, the system simply wasn’t able to handle that much data being processed at once, which explained the issue we were experiencing.”
After a few months, Blazek-Scherler said, Marsicano withdrew his initial request and refined it by submitting five separate Open Records requests for emails “sent to and from Lawton Mayor Stan Booker’s city email address” during a 16-month period, from January 1, 2024, to April 1, 2025, “which contain any of the following keywords or replies to emails which contain the same keywords, which include any one of the following:”
Ÿ budget, audit, finances, expenditures, revenue, income, debt, tax, taxes, bonds, CIP, funds.
Ÿ Lawton fire department, firefighters, wages, fire department, Local 1882, fire union, [Lawton Fire] Chief [Jared] Williams, [Lawton Police Chief] James Smith, police department, Lawton police.
Ÿ charter, city code, city policy, policy, Lawton charter, economic development, ordinance.
Ÿ homeless, homelessness, unhoused, tent-city, anti-camping.
Ÿ KSWO, channel 7, Justin Rose, Seth Marsicano, 7News, Sharicka Brackens, Kelvin Mize, news, reporter.
City employees are still responding to Marsicano’s recordsrequests, Ms. Blazek-Scherler said on May 29. Marsicano’s “five modified requests are under legal review right now,” she said.
In addition, Marsicano subsequently submitted an Open Records request for all emails to and from City Council Relations Liaison Julia Mantzke since her date of hire, Blazek-Scherler said. Mantzke “has been with the city for almost a year,” the city clerk said.
Southwest Ledger called KSWO and left a message for Marsicano but he never responded.
Records also sought
for FISTA, CCIDA
The Ledger also learned that Reanna Gonzalez, who apparently is a reporter for KSWO-TV, filed Open Records requests with FISTA [the Fires Innovation Science and Technology Accelerator in the former Central Mall downtown], seeking:
Ÿ “A list of expenditures for the FISTA Trust Authority for the last three months.”
Ÿ “A list of all the buildings (businesses, offices, houses, etc.) that the City of Lawton has paid the insurance for in the last five months.”
Ÿ “The lease agreement between FISTA and the City of Lawton.”
Ÿ “Receipts of FISTA’s last two payments made toward rent on the building.”
Meanwhile, the Comanche County Clerk’s Office received an Open Records request May 22 from Ogletree Deakins, a labor and employment law firm in Oklahoma City. Ogletree Deakins requested “any and all expenditures made by Westwin Elements, Inc., from January 1, 2022, to ‘present’.”
In addition, Ogletree Deakins reportedly requested financial records on Westwin and on the Comanche County Industrial Development Authority. Westwin is a privately owned company. CCIDA is “a component unit of Comanche County” that “operates as a public trust … to promote economic growth within Comanche County.”
One question
opened the door
The disclosures resulted from a question that was posed during the Lawton City Council meeting May 27 about Lawton’s city budget for Fiscal Year 2025-26.
“Do we budget for FOIA requests?” Councilman Randy Warren asked Finance Director Rebecca Johnson.
The “Freedom of Information Act” applies to federal records. State and local government records in Oklahoma are subject to the “Open Records Act.”
Ms. Johnson indicated the city budget includes no line-item expenditure for “open records” requests.
Warren said he had heard rumors that someone submitted one or more requests for a large volume of municipal records.
That rumor is correct, he was told. It could cost the City of Lawton – and its taxpayers – approximately $67,000 to comply in full with the initial public records demand.
“That was a single request,” Ms. Johnson added.
“What was the reason for that?” Warren wondered.
“It was a very broad request from a media company,” he was told.
Eventually it was revealed that KSWO’s Marsicano was the person who submitted the records request.
Sixty-seven thousand dollars could finance the salary and equipment for a first-year firefighter or a first-year police officer, Warren said.
Warren also was informed that because Marsicano is a reporter, KSWO will not be required to pay one penny of the cost of locating and reviewing all of the records he requested, redacting personal and/or sensitive information, and providing copies of the emails.
Channel 7 withdrew its request during the legal review process, so only a portion of the records Marsicano sought were processed and the entire estimated cost was not incurred, Blazek-Scherler said.
Warren wondered how many employees have been engaged full- or part-time procuring the records to comply with TV-7’s requests.Blazek-Scherler told Southwest Ledger that answering Marsicano’s multiple requests has required the efforts of two paralegals and one attorney.
“Someone’s on a witch hunt,” Councilman George Gill said. “I don’t like spending the city’s money and just blowing it away.”
“I’m all for transparency,” Warren said. “But I haven’t seen any big exposé from any media outlet. It seems to be a waste of money and a waste of time to go through those emails.’
Gill and Warren both suggested that Channel 7, not Lawton taxpayers, should have to “pay for what they asked for when they have some axe to grind.”
Councilman Allan Hampton complained about “this constant need to find something wrong all the time. It puts Lawton in a bad light.” The City of Lawton is spending literally tens of millions of dollars “fixing streets and water and sewer lines and upgrading parks,” he noted. The state’s Open Records Act “wasn’t set up to badger a bunch of people because you’re unhappy.”
‘Harassment and
intimidation,’
mayor contends
KSWO’s “large, broad, open records requests” are “harassmentand attempted intimidation,” Booker said.
“I do believe it is a result of my publicly questioning their reporting on the CIP [Propel Capital Improvements Program 2040] campaign in a way that made it negative,” he told the Ledger.
“Then I went live on Facebook a couple of times to correct what I thought was slanted reporting,” he continued. “Then, after selective editing of interviews, I refused to give Seth an interview except for a live interview. Then they withdraw the invitation to ‘Monday with the Mayor’ and registered the Open Records request.”
“I’m just as fed up as Mayor Booker is,” Josh Powers, chairman of the Comanche County Board of Commissioners, told the Ledger.“Instead of reporting on the good things, our local media is just beating us up. This kind of stuff is going to make the process more difficult for everybody.”
Tim Wilson, Lawton’s acting city attorney, said that because of the way Oklahoma’s Open Records Act is written, “It becomes burdensome for staff.” He suggested that city councilors who want the law amended should contact the state Legislature.
Open Records Act
Oklahoma’s Open Records Act states:
“As the Oklahoma Constitution recognizes and guarantees, all political power is inherent in the people. Thus, it is the public policy of the State of Oklahoma that the people are vested with the inherent right to know and be fully informed about their government…
“The purpose of this act is to ensure and facilitate the public's right of access to and review of government records so they may efficiently and intelligently exercise their inherent political power…
“Except where specific state or federal statutes create a confidential privilege, persons who submit information to public bodies have no right to keep this information from public access nor reasonable expectation that this information will be kept from public access…”
“In no case shall a search fee be charged when the release of records is in the public interest, including, but not limited to, release to the news media, scholars, authors and taxpayers seeking to determine whether those entrusted with the affairs of the government are honestly, faithfully, and competently performing their duties as public servants.”
Mike W. Ray has won more than 40 awards from the National Newspaper Association, the Oklahoma Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists Oklahoma Pro Chapter, and the Public Relations Society of America.
Ray is a fifth-generation newspaperman who has worked in the news and communication business for 57 years.
He has received awards for various news stories, investigative reporting, business reporting, election reporting, editorial writing, column writing, reporting on local government, in-depth reporting, feature stories, spot news, criminal justice reporting, and science, technology, health and environmental reporting.
He also received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the SPJ Oklahoma Pro Chapter in 2018.