Interview with the Attorney General's office
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Date of Interview: 04/19/06
Length of Interview: approx. 15 minutes
People Present: Rachel Dodakian, telephone interview to Wisconsin Attorney General’s office
Lead Interviewer: n/a
Location of Interview: From my home 1755 N Cambridge Ave,Milwaukee, WI. to Attorney General’s office in Madison, WI.
Who was interviewed: Mary Burke, attorney with the State Programs, Administration, and Revenue (‘SPAR”) unit of the Attorney General’s office
Significance to the case: At this point in my reporting, the Wauwatosa School District has requested varying amounts of money, at one point over $1000, to fill my public records request. I am calling Burke to seek advice on how to best use the open records law to help me, and how to get WSD to detail exactly what they want to charge me for, and if they can even charge me for such things.
I have been in contact with the Wisconsin Attorney General’s office since 04/13/06 via email and phone calls (see my reporting log for all the contact details).
From what Burke understands, they cannot charge me for an extra staff member to come in and sit by me while I look at the files. Atty. Burke further suggested that if WSD is claiming that they have to go through these 142 files and pull and redact anything sensitive before they present the files to me for review, that I should simply request copies of expense reimbursement forms once they are redacted (I thought this was my original request...) since they are going to have to pull this information anyway.
-She still said she questions the amount of time they are claiming it will take, and that she is losing patience with this.
-Burke suggests that I inform WSD that I have been in contact with AG’s office and that I also inform them that she is losing patience with this request. She suggested that I get WSD on the phone with the two of us now. I replied by saying that I’ve made some progress with them and that I will give it until tomorrow to decide to bring out the stick.
-I adv Burke that I have a telephone meeting with super’s asst today at 2pm and that I will bring up her suggestion that if I am being charged for pulling and redacting those expense claim vouchers that have sensitive information anyway, why do I need to see the rest of the documents contained in all 142 files?
Per phone conversation w/Galante, it sounded as if they were going to sift through the files anyway for the expense claim forms, wouldn’t it be less work to just concentrate on the forms in question (copy them, redact if needed), than to prepare entire files for my review?
Atty. said she has court at 2pm but to contact her if a conference call would be in order.
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