Prosecutor to Little Rock: Abide by open-records law

LITTLE ROCK — Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley of the 6th Judicial District in a letter Thursday requested that Little Rock city officials “fully comply” with unresolved Arkansas Freedom of Information Act requests submitted by a Conway man.

In a recent dust-up with Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr., the requestor, Jimmie Cavin, claimed the mayor’s administration had violated the open- records law and accused Scott of “lavishly” spending taxpayer money, referring to materials he obtained via the FOIA.

According to Jegley’s letter, which was addressed to the mayor, city attorney and city board members, Cavin filed two FOIA requests on July 22, “neither of which were responded to completely or within the time frame required by statute.”

One request asked for the mayor’s “compensation package” for the four years he has been in office and the second request asked for all statements related to Scott’s city credit card for travel to date, according to Jegley.

It was only after Cavin informed city officials that he intended to file a police report that the city provided some records on Aug. 5, Jegley wrote, but compensation documentation for Scott in 2022 was not provided. Likewise, there appeared to be “many statements missing” from the requested credit-card records, he wrote.

“Mr. Cavin notified city officials that statements were missing and a letter was produced for a third credit card, stating that no charges were ever made on that account, but it does not appear that any documents have been provided that explain missing statements for the two credit cards issued to Mayor Scott,” Jegley wrote.

Jegley noted that the FOIA requires public records to be open to inspection during regular business hours. In the event that the records are in active use or storage, the law states that the custodian must certify this fact in writing to the requestor and set a date and time within three working days to make them available.

He also referred to the fact that under state law, negligently violating any provision of the FOIA is a Class C misdemeanor.

Jegley requested that “within three days of issuance of this letter, the City of Little Rock fully comply with Mr. Cavin’s requests for compensation packages for each year requested and all credit card statements requested. If such information does not exist, please respond with that explanation.”

In response to a request for comment Friday, Little Rock City Attorney Tom Carpenter wrote in an email, “This office has the letter, is gathering information, and will answer the letter next week. The letter was sent to each member of the Board of Directors, and this office has received some telephone calls from [ Board of Directors] members as to what steps this office will take. We have essentially stated to them the same thing contained in this email.”

Carpenter later added that “we take Mr. Jegley’s letter quite seriously, and wish to provide the information about which he asked as completely as possible.”