Friday, December 18, 2009

SME's 2008 Form 990 Is Here

Many thanks to Rich Liebert who doggedly pursued the city manager with a FOIA request for SME's 2008 form 990:

Dear Greg,
I wish to formally request a copy of the 2008 IRS Form 990 filed by Southern. I do not have the time or inclination to register with guidestar.org (as Ms. Balzini suggested) and expose personal information to them and also be subject to fees and marketing schemes. This 990 document is also essential for Burns and McDonnell to scrutinize as well as we the general public.

As a citizen of the state of Montana, I make this request under the Montana Public Records Act and MCA 2009. Frankly, I'm tired of the sophistry and intend to ask for any documentation, records and notes produced or obtained by any public official attending a Southern meeting as allowed under MCA and the Public Records Act. The routine response that 'it's all under litigation and forbidden' is quite inadequate. If we citizens cannot attend Southern meetings, then we certainly have a right to PUBLIC records, as Southern is an entity that benefits from the public funds of the City of Great Falls.

I fully understand the complexity of trade secrets and such, but certainly records can be redacted. I don't care about what Southern might pay for a turbine part, but citizens do care about what's impacting our city, especially fiscal obligations and our equity. Feel free to have the city attorney consider this request along with the city clerk and I await your advice and response. I am proud of our federal and state constitutions and expect them to be honored and complied with please.

Respectfully,
Richard D. Liebert

Within a day, the document was mailed to the city. City clerk, Lisa Kunz, did a great job of notifying Rich and getting the information into his hands ASAP.

Could this be a sign the city manager is waking up? If he isn't, he better. As I understand it, he has a job review coming up in three months.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

"doggedly pursued" No offense to Rich, but if you look at the date the preparer signed the return, it has only been completed for 3 weeks.

Richard Liebert said...

Thanks anonymous, you are right about the filing date. The point is that city staff is being more responsive. I appreciate the note.

Anonymous said...

I for one hope the review of Mr. Doyon goes well. He is a class act and now that the chains have been removed (Stebbins, Rosenbaum, Beecher) Greg will demonstrate why he is a very, very good city manager!

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 12:52

I too hope the review goes well and he, by then, wakes up to run this city after his two year sleep. He apparently has the abilities, just lacks the will and Ba--s......