The Arizona Court of Appeals told Sheriff Joe Arpaio Wednesday that if he insists on being petty and vindictive with public records, his office is going to have to pay for it. Of course, that means we taxpayers will have to pick up another bill for Arpaio’s defiance.Arpaio has been locked into a rather stupid fight for almost two years with a newspaper called the West Valley View that covers several smaller communities including Litchfield Park and Avondale. In the fall of 2005, the sheriff’s office removed the West Valley View from its list of media outlets who receive news releases by email. The newspaper discovered this when the sheriff announced his investigators had solved a double-homicide in the newspaper’s coverage area, but the West Valley View only learned about it from reports by its competitors. Capt. Paul Chagolla, the main spokesman for the sheriff’s office, told a West Valley View editor that the newspaper never seemed to write any stories from the news releases, so apparently it didn’t need to receive them anymore.Translation: The West Valley View doesn’t write about many of the publicity stunts by Arpaio, so the sheriff’s office will punish the newspaper by denying it information that could be useful to its readers.This has turned out to a common tactic of the sheriff and his staff. Other newspapers such as the Sonoran News and the Phoenix New Times routinely have been cut off from written information in response to negative stories and criticism of Arpaio. In July, the news director at KPNX-TV, the Valley NBC affiliate, told the Arizona First Amendment Coalition that Arpaio was trying to black out that station as well.As a county sheriff, Arpaio routinely sends his news releases to a rather odd collection of places include Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. But he refuses to put any of them on his office Web site for the average taxpayer to read. This allows him to use information about his office as leverage against media outlets: push Arpaio too far and he could shut you out while aiding your competitors.The West Valley View refused to be intimidated. The newspaper filed a request under state’s open records law to receive all future news releases at the same time as other media outlets. When the sheriff’s office ignored the request, the newspaper sued.A trial judge said the law doesn’t require Arpaio to return the West Valley View to the email list. But the judge did require the sheriff’s office to make all news releases available on the same day they are sent to other media, even if someone from the newspaper has to drive more than 20 miles roundtrip to downtown Phoenix to retrieve them.That didn’t satisfied Arpaio, who argues the West Valley View should have to request to see each news release after they are issued and sent to others. So he appealed, confident the ruling would be overturned.Not only did the appeals court reaffirm the trial judge’s order, the court said Aug. 9 that Arpaio has no legitimate reason for his actions and directed his office to pay the West Valley View’s costs to pursue the lawsuit.Arpaio frequently promises to pursue lawsuits to the state Supreme Court, if necessary, and he’s stubborn enough to waste more tax money on this vendetta. But if he wants to do the right thing, he will put the West Valley View back on the email list. Or even better, start posting the news releases on the sheriff’s office Web site for everyone to see at the same time, like virtually every other government agency in the Valley. The "World’s Toughest Sheriff" should be able to handle the scrutiny.

Posted in: Public records |

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