Centerton man suing city over documents request

CENTERTON — A Centerton man planning to run for mayor has filed a lawsuit claiming the city failed to provide records he was seeking in a Freedom of Information Act request.

Fort Smith attorney Joey McCutchen filed the lawsuit last week on behalf of Michael Commet against the city.

Commet has announced he intends to run for mayor, according to a press release from McCutchen.

The lawsuit was filed after Commet sent three separate FOIA requests seeking city bank records, Centerton city attorney invoices and email communications between Mayor Bill Edwards and all City Council members, according to the release.

The lawsuit claims Brian Rabal, city attorney, acknowledged Oct. 13 he received two of the FOI requests and the city had documents, but said the records would need to be printed and manually redacted, according to the lawsuit.

Rabal said it would take five hours to complete and the city required a $370.25 payment for reproduction costs, according to the lawsuit.

The city did produce records of outgoing emails from Edwards to council members but did not include emails from any of the members to Edwards as requested by Commet, according to the complaint.

The Arkansas Supreme Court has held it is improper for a government entity to charge for labor when fulfilling an FOI request, McCutchen said.

“It’s outrageous that public officials still try to charge FOIA requesters for government-employee time to produce public records,” he said. “Not only is that prohibited by FOIA, citizens have already paid for that service through their generous tax dollars. It’s even more outrageous when public officials decide to blatantly disregard a FOIA request.”

Rabal said he and the city are aware of Commet’s lawsuit but have not been served nor had the opportunity to review the allegations contained in the lawsuit.

“The city of Centerton makes every effort to be transparent and to respond to FOIA requests as required by law while protecting the privacy rights of its citizens,” Rabal said. “City staff attempted to work with Mr. Commet to provide responsive records that would be satisfactory to him. Rather than working with city staff to reasonably accommodate his request Mr. Commet chose to litigate.”

Rabal said the city is continuing to provide responsive records to Commet’s requests.

The case is assigned to Benton County Judge John Scott. A hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday.