Spokane Valley City Council member Al Merkel's issues fulfilling city public records requests have come to a head.
On Feb. 4, Spokane Valley City Council unanimously voted 6-0 (Merkel was not allowed to vote) to direct City Manager John Hohman to initiate legal action against Merkel.
Hohman says Merkel has failed to fully cooperate with the city to provide all records for more than 60 public records requests for Merkel's social media activity, including edited posts on the neighborhood-based social media site Nextdoor.
The City Council is currently working with Lukins & Annis attorneys on the next steps to get Merkel to comply and provide the requested records.
"What we're trying to do is to compel him to hand over the public records that he's created over this last year that we've been unable to get a hold of," Hohman says. "It could very well be a lawsuit — if he's unwilling — to have a court order determine that he needs to turn these [records] over."
City Attorney Kelly Konkright said at the Feb. 4 council meeting that legal fees could range from $50,000 to more than $100,000, depending on Merkel's decision to comply or not.
Merkel says the pending litigation is a waste of taxpayer money, and he disagrees that the records requested by the city are public records.
"I have turned over everything that I've got, everything that was requested by the city despite a continually moving bar, including my password to Nextdoor," Merkel says. "There's nothing else I have to give them."
Konkright confirmed at the meeting that Merkel had provided his Nextdoor password, but due to two-factor authentication, the city could not access the needed code to get into the account without Merkel's help.
Pagefreezer software used by the city also does not capture Merkel's social posts on other pages, so the city has also requested screenshots of the posts to comply with records requests. ♦
