More Shameful Political Attacks

Dear Friend,

From the beginning of this year's Regular Session, it's been clear that the Governor and his allies expected their controversial education agenda to be passed through the Legislature with extreme speed and without significant debate or conversation. This predetermination has encouraged those on the Governor's side to resort to shameful political attacks in attempts to silence those who dare to raise questions about their agenda.

Their latest attack is focused on Senator Ben Nevers and I. This time, however, their partisan grandstanding stands to levy considerable costs on taxpayers while sending already over-worked staff on a more than year-long fishing expedition:

From: Glenn Koepp

To: Senator Karen Peterson, Senator Ben Nevers, President John Alario

Subject: Public Records Response

Mr. McKay:

We have received your request to produce any and all electronic and written correspondence between:

Sen. Karen Carter Peterson and the following four lobbyists and/or special interest group leaders: Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan, Louisiana Federation of Teachers Legislative Director Mary Patricia Wray, Louisiana Association of Educators President Joyce Haynes and Louisiana Association of Educators Executive Director Michael Walker Jones from January 9, 2011 to present day.
Sen. Ben Nevers and the following four lobbyists and/or special interest group leaders: Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan, Louisiana Federation of Teachers Legislative Director Mary Patricia Wray, Louisiana Association of Educators President Joyce Haynes and Louisiana Association of Educators Executive Director Michael Walker Jones from January 9, 2011 to present day.

Our procedure relative to the portion of your request seeking electronic records is to ask our computer center to segregate the daily back-up tapes covering the request period and to provide me with an estimate of time necessary to resurrect the back-ups. The computer center then has to re-create Senator Peterson’s and Senator Nevers’ email boxes covering the request period.

I will then review the e-mails within the mail boxes and delete all non-public records, i.e. e-mails that have nothing to do with conducting the public's business. I will then segregate the e-mails that meet the criteria of your request. I will then sit with Senator Peterson and Senator Nevers and review the segregated e-mails to identify the ones that are protected speech under the constitutional privilege contained in Art. III, § 8 of the Louisiana Constitution. I will create a disclosure log identifying the number of deleted e-mails and the reason for their deletion.

This process will result in a set of e-mails which will meet your request. I will notify you of the number of pages and will deliver those e-mails after you pay the requisite $0.25 per page.

The restoration process is as follows for a single day’s email mailbox: 30 minutes to determine which tape is needed and acquire it from our storage facility; 30 minutes to mount the required tape; 6 hours to restore the database to a recovery group; monitoring the process; 1 hour to extract the *.PST for Senator Peterson and for Senator Nevers from the recovery group. We require a current, experienced Network Specialist perform this work because it involves our current backup system and several servers that remain in production. This person must be fully familiar with our systems. We do not approve overtime for this type of work.

The request period is January 9, 2011 - March 29, 2012, 446 calendar days. Based on the above information, this request will require 446 work-days to recreate the *.PST for Senator Peterson and for Senator Nevers. I will be able to begin my review of the mail boxes after their creation. Until I know of the size of the restored mailboxes & the number of e-mails between Senator Peterson and Senator Nevers and the named individuals I will not be able to estimate the date upon which I will be able to deliver you the copies of the e-mails.

The Senate Computer Center will begin this process next week. If you decide to alter or cancel your request but do not do so until after the Senate has begun the process of recreating the mail boxes, please understand that the Senate reserves the right to bill you for the time of our professional staff devoted to satisfying your request, at a per hour rate of $75.00.

By copy of this e-mail, I am formally requesting Senator Peterson and Senator Nevers segregate the written correspondence you request and transfer those documents to me for my review.

You may contact me at the office, 225-342-5997, or at this e-mail address.

Please acknowledge receipt of this e-mail. Failure to so acknowledge will delay the processing of your records request.

Glenn A. Koepp,

Secretary of the Senate

While tactics like this have no effect on my work as your Senator, nor on my willingness to stand up for what is right, they do cause significant strain on Legislative staff and incur considerable costs to the taxpayers. No matter what they attempt to do next, we cannot forget that we must continue work our hardest to guarantee that we are doing our best to serve our children and the future of this State. Real reform must be measured by the highest standards of accountability and a commitment to fixing what ails our public schools, not discarding the entire system and setting off into uncharted, and accountable, educational waters.

Continue to write your legislators and the administration. Your engagement can make all of the difference.

Sincerely,

Karen