Erlanger may have allegedly run afoul of open records laws, and now one city worker says the Kentucky Attorney General is investigating.
“The only thing that was going to protect me is if I went to the attorney general’s office and became a whistleblower,” said Jim White, who works in the city’s IT department.
When contacted, the attorney general’s office said it “cannot confirm or deny an investigation,” but White said that an investigator from the attorney general’s office has already carried out interviews with Mayor Jessica Fette, City Administrator Mark Collier and other city staff.
Collier declined to comment when contacted. Fette has not returned LINK nky’s request for comment.
The issue in question arose in early January, when Council Member Jennifer Jasper-Lucas made four public records requests to the city, one of which was about a mural project in Elsmere that Fette was involved in.
Jasper-Lucas told LINK nky that she has not interacted at all with the attorney general’s office.
Her request came across White’s desk in January. The emails of elected officials are subject to open records laws in Kentucky, so he was tasked with pulling email records to satisfy requests. White said he did this for the city for six years.
An email chain within Jasper-Lucas’ request contained an email from Erlanger Council Member Tyson Hermes using vulgar language to identify Elsmere Mayor Marty Lenhof and some Erlanger city council members. LINK nky has obtained a copy of the email chain, and the email itself has made its rounds on social media.
White said his supervisor, whom he did not name, instructed him to remove some of the page numbers — but not the pages themselves — from the email chain. After he removed the page numbers from the emails, he returned them to his supervisor. Later in January, he said he was informed that Fette no longer wanted him to handle open records requests.
“No reason was given, and I didn’t ask,” White said in a social media video he posted about his experience. You can watch the video below.
Jasper-Lucas got her records requests back, which were hundreds of pages long. Corine Pitts, a former council member who’s running to become a council member again this year, offered to help sort through the request. White and Pitts know each other, so White called her, asking what she thought about the vulgar comments.
“Jim called me to see if the vulgar language that Tyson had written in the emails was in there…,” said Pitts, “and I said no. There’s a bunch of pages missing.”
Hearing this, White went to an attorney, who informed him that if the mayor had removed pages from a records request, it was likely illegal. After that, he contacted the attorney general’s office.
Jasper-Lucas shared both the city’s response to her records request and the records themselves with LINK nky. The email containing the vulgar remark did not appear in what she shared, either redacted or unredacted.
“It concerns me because now do we trust other records that we’ve received?” said Jasper-Lucas.
Election season
Animosity between Erlanger elected officials isn’t new. Jasper-Lucas has been a longtime critic of Fette, and the two have come to rhetorical blows in the past.
This summer, Jasper-Lucas and Fette sparred in open session about communications and access to city information. Jasper-Lucas argued she’d been shut out of communicating with city staff members, but Fette countered that Jasper-Lucas’ demands for information had created an atmosphere of fear among the workers. At one meeting in June, Fette spent about 43 minutes in open session defending her position.
That particular dispute centered on a directive issued by Fette requiring Jasper-Lucas to route requests for records, operational information and administrative inquiries through the mayor, city administrator or city attorney rather than communicating directly with city staff.
Much of the discussion focused on email exchanges between Jasper-Lucas and City Administrator Mark Collier. Fette cited emails in which Collier requested that operational questions be routed through him so staff responses could be coordinated efficiently. Jasper-Lucas responded in one email that she was elected by taxpayers rather than the administration and would continue directing questions to what she considered the most appropriate department.
The mayor argued the communication protocol was necessary to protect employees and preserve an efficient workplace, while Jasper-Lucas maintained the restrictions interfere with her ability to perform legislative oversight and respond to residents’ concerns.
Additionally, Jasper-Lucas has also come out in support of Diana Niceley, a current council member who is running against Fette for the mayor’s seat.
In the wake of the news about White going to the attorney general’s office, Niceley issued a statement saying she would request a special examination of the city by the State Auditor’s Office..
Jasper-Lucas, Pitts and other council members have also been critical of Fette’s relationship with Hermes, arguing that he’s often looped into executive business while others have been shut out. Hermes formerly served as the city’s mayor and set up a city task force earlier this year to consider if the city should change how it handles its public records requests.
Open records penalties in Kentucky
Access to public records in Kentucky is governed by the Kentucky Open Records Act.
Someone who makes a public records request but gets denied can make a complaint with the attorney general’s office, which issues an opinion on whether the agency conformed with the law. This type of complaint process is somewhat routine. The office publishes the opinions it issues on its website.
If a public agency wishes to withhold a record, it must give a reason and cite the law that enables the exemption. Penalties against breaking the law (i.e. actively tampering or concealing records that shouldn’t be withheld) are laid out in Kentucky Revised Statute, Chapter 171 and include fines and jail time. Tampering with public records is considered a felony.
That being said, penalties are “almost never imposed,” said Amye Bensenhaver, a director with the Kentucky Open Government Coalition.
Bensenhaver is a former Kentucky assistant attorney general and has advocated for greater public access to government information. In 2022, she penned a write-up about the topic of tampering with or concealing public records for the coalition, which you can read here. Notably, Bensenhaver, in her write-up, said the coalition was not aware of any Kentucky official who’s ever been penalized under state statutes.
Bensenhaver did not have any knowledge of Erlanger’s situation but pointed out that government agencies have definitely hidden public information in the past.
“It’s a real problem,” Bensenhaver said, even if it’s “not like killing your mother.”
So, what’s next?
White stated that the attorney general will likely wait until after the election to take action. LINK nky will report more on this situation as information becomes available.
Ella Rose Johnston contributed reporting to this story.
