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I participated in the 2007 National Sunshine Week Audit in mid-January. My instructions were clear: I was to obtain the document but be prepared for some roadblocks.
My first goal was to find
the Office of Emergency Management located in the
La Crosse Law Enforcement Center and remain “undercover” as an average citizen. Under no circumstances was I to divulge that I had any affiliation with La Crosse Tribune.
By federal law, each district
is required to have a Local Emergency Planning Committee. According to the Environmental Protection Agency Web site, the plans are in place to provide public and local governments with information about chemical hazards in their communities.
At the south entrance of the La Crosse County Courthouse and Law Enforcement Center, a security guard cordially greeted me. I asked where I could find Keith Butler with Emergency Management.
He thought Butler’s office might be in the Wettstein’s Building but proceeded to direct me to other side of the Enforcement Center — to the Office of Emergency Management.
After entering the building on the opposite side, passing the 911 Dispatch Center, I found the office and a locked door. I used the intercom, assuming it would connect me with someone inside the Office of Emergency Management, and asked where I could obtain a copy of the Emergency Plan.
An Oz-like voice responded, “I don’t know where you can find that. They can probably help you at the sheriff’s department.”
Frustrated, I walked back outside, around the building, through the metal detector, up the stairs and down the hall.
The receptionist at the sheriff’s department asked me why I wanted the document. Quickly, I used my rehearsed response, “Do you really need to know that information in order for me to obtain the report?”
I’m just a concerned citizen who wants a copy, I told her.
As I sat waiting, I heard her whisper to someone on the phone, “Can we release that information to the public?”
“Ha, gotcha!” I thought. According to section 311 and 312 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986, I had the right to access this information.
Directing me back downstairs, she notified me that she had alerted the Office of Emergency Management. She said that I would have to speak with their coordinator, Keith Butler.
Welcoming me with a bright smile, Butler, the man I had originally been trying to find, asked if I had brought a wheelbarrow with me. He pulled an overstuffed binder off the shelf. He offered to make a copy of it, but said that I should expect it to take a couple of days — they just didn’t have that much ink in their printer.
Instead, Butler, both very helpful and cordial, pulled up the files on his personal computer and copied them to a data CD for me to take.
While the CD was being prepared, he summarized each section of the emergency plan. He also assured me that I had the right to this information. He also said I was the first citizen who had ever asked for the plan in his time with the department.
Flannery Cerbin of La Crosse is a student at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. She was an intern at the Tribune in January.
