On Dec. 12 of last year, The Selma Times-Journal sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to Selma City Hall in an effort to get documents related to the city’s financial situation.

The FOIA is a federal law which provides citizens with access to government documents that fall under the purview of public record guidelines. While FOIA regulations do not cover state or city governments, Alabama Press Association (APA) General Counsel Dennis Bailey stated that financial documents of this nature are “obviously covered by the Alabama Public Records Law.”

“The public policy’s clear,” Bailey said. “There’s no justification for not responding.”

To date, the city has not responded to that request. Multiple attempts to correspond with city hall through Selma City Clerk Ivy Harrison, to whom the letter was addressed, have been unsuccessful – no less than 10 phone calls were made, with no answer and no means for leaving a voice message, and at least one email sent through the city’s website.

A follow-up letter was mailed Wednesday morning, addressed to Harrison and Selma Mayor Darrio Melton, informing the city officials that they have seven days to respond or the paper will consider the request denied.

The follow-up letter was mailed to both the city’s P.O. box at P.O. Box 450 and to the Selma City Hall Office at 222 Broad St. The follow-up letter was sent as certified mail requiring the recipients to sign showing they have received the mail.

Both letters requested the following information: “all financial statements for the period of November 2016 through December 2018 related to the City of Selma, including but not limited to expenditures, funds received, current balances, city payroll, the amount of money saved as a result of the 68 lay-offs issued in November 2018, as well as any and all documents related to or exceeding this information. This information should also include documentation of all money spent from city accounts and a description of what those funds were spent on, as well as who approved said expenditures.”

The Times-Journal was compelled to take this action due to the continuing concern among Selma residents that the city’s financial situation has not been made clear to the public or the Selma City Council, not out of an assumption or allegation of impropriety.

According to Selma City Councilwoman Miah Jackson, multiple financial documents that the council has requested have not been submitted, including a list of the names, titles and salaries of all city employees, detailed invoices and purchase orders and daily deposit updates.

Further, documents provided by Montgomery attorney Julian McPhillips last year indicate that positions defunded by the city council are still being paid out of city accounts.

“I don’t feel like he’s being honest,” Jackson said of the mayor. “Why is he not presenting us with something more in line with our financial stance?”

For her part, Jackson agrees that the city is facing financial peril, but she believes the documentation to show exactly how dire the situation is should be made readily available.

“It would ensure that we know exactly what’s going on with the finances,” Jackson said. “There has to be a balance.”

Jackson noted that the mayor has recently provided the council with financial documents that had previously been inaccessible and Selma City Council President Corey Bowie agrees.

“We have recently started receiving the financial statements,” Bowie said. “By receiving these pivotal documents it helps with the council making sound decisions for the best interest of the city and citizens.”

For his part, Bowie looks forward to sitting down and “resolving and probing issues as it relates to the finances of the city.”

Both Jackson and Bailey asserted that the city’s adherence to the FOIA request is in the best interest of the city and the citizens.

“I hope he adheres to it and understands how important it for [the citizens] to have access to it,” Jackson said, adding that a refusal to submit the proper documentation could result in “trouble” with the federal government.

“[FOIA requests] are fundamental building blocks of voting,” Bailey said. “If you can’t get information of what your government is doing, you’re spitting in the breeze.”

Alabama law does not set a time table for documentation to be submitted to a requesting agency, which is why Bailey advised that the seven-day caveat be added to the Times-Journal’s latest request – he believes the law should be changed to impose guidelines on agency’s possessing public information.

“It’s needed for the custodians who don’t want to provide the information for whatever reason,” Bailey said. “Unfortunately, there are more and more that fall into that category.”

According to Bailey, the newspaper’s only recourse if the latest request does not garner a response is to file an open records suit in circuit court.