Supreme Court Backs Central City News

Public Records Case Sent to District Court With Direction from La. 1st Circuit Court of Appeal

NEW ORLEANS — The Louisiana Supreme Court gave an important legal victory to the Central City News last week when it threw out an appeal lodged by CH2MHILL in its attempt to keep secret certain records of the City of Central.

Central City News editor Woody Jenkins said, “We believe this is an important decision, protecting the public’s right to have access to public documents and a strong statement that privatization cannot be used as a shield to prevent public access to documents concerning the public’s business.”

The unanimous Supreme Court ruling left intact a decision by Louisiana’s 1st Circuit Court of Appeal that District Judge Kay Bates erred in granting a summary judgment in the case in favor of CH2MHILL.

The City of Central is the only Louisiana municipality that has been completely privatized.  From 2008 to 2011, the city government was administered by a $6 billion international company named CH2MHILL.  In 2011, CH2MHILL lost its contract to run the city to a non-profit organization named IBTS.

This litigation originated in March 2010 when the City of Central was in the midst of municipal elections.  Mayor candidate Jr. Shelton made an issue of high permit fees in the City of Central and blamed incumbent Mayor Mac Watts and CH2MHILL, which received 90 percent of the permit fees across the top.

A week before the election, Shelton ran an ad critical of the high fees.  One day before the election, an answer to Shelton’s ad appeared from the “City of Central.” That ad defended the city’s permit fee system.

After the election, the Central City News made a public records request for the documents related to the placement of the ad in the name of the “City of Central.”  The city government said it had no such documents.  And CH2MHILL, which ran the day-to-day operations of city government and received 80 percent of the city’s budget, said it was not subject to Louisiana’s Public Records Law.

The Central City News maintained that CH2MHILL was receiving taxpayer funds and administering city government.  Central City News attorney Alex St. Amant said, “CH2MHILL was functioning as the city government and performing sovereign acts as though it were the government, such as issuing permits.  It was the de facto government of the City of Central.  As a result, it is subject to the Public Records Act.”

District Judge Kay Bates never held a trial on the substance of the case or allowed testimony, even though Louisiana law provides that Public Records cases are to be heard within 10 days.

Instead, Bates issued a summary judgment stating that CH2MHILL was a private company and, as such, was not subject to the Public Records Law.

The Central City News appealed Bates’ decision to Louisiana’s 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, contended that it was wrong for Bates to issue the summary judgment and that a private company can be subject to the Public Records Law if it functions as the de facto government of a city.

The Court of Appeals agreed with the Central City News and directed Bates to hold a hearing on the connexity between CH2MHILL and the City of Central.  It indicated that if the connexity was great, CH2MHILL would be subject to the Public Records Law.

The Louisiana Supreme Court upheld the decision of the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, and now the case will return to Bates for a hearing.

The date of Bates’ hearing has not yet been set.