Friday, June 09, 2006

When the law enforcers don't obey the law....

When we filed the Open Meeting Lawsuit over a year ago, the press called the District Attorney's office (who is responsible for enforcement) for comment. They had already slapped the Council and Michael Flaherty's hand with a written warning, and we had made formal complaint to them about further violations.

The spokesman for D.A. Conley (former Boston City Councilor) said that the department would do a "thorough investigation" into the allegations.

The judge in our case indicated that she would refer her decision to the DA's office for future reference. I filed a Freedom of Information Act Request with the DA's office to find out what they had done in that year they had to do a thorough investigation. Of course they didn't obey the law and respond in 10 days as required by statute. They didn't do anything. Finally, after a couple months I called and an attorney told me that they routinely don't answer FOIA acts for 2 to 3 months. He looked at the file for me and admitted they had done nothing for the past year except read my blog, take press clippings from the Globe, and get copies of our documents filed with the court. Now there is a thorough investigation.

I'm not holding out much hope that the District Attorney will do anything to uphold the law against his former City Council buddies.

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