Pima County Supervisor Ally Miller walked out of a heated board meeting today as her delays in responding to public-records requests were being discussed.
“I have an urgent appointment I need to get to,” Miller said. “I thought we’d be done by now.”
After Miller’s departure, the board voted for a new records policy that would require members to turn over public records related to county business created on personal computers and devices such as smart phones, as well as public records created on private email accounts.
Before she left the meeting, Miller pledged to turn over any public records created on personal devices.
While Miller has told county officials that she and her staff have not done county business on private email accounts or on private devices, recently uncovered records suggest that District 1 staffers, including Miller, may indeed have discussed county business using their private email accounts.
Today’s board vote leaves Miller in a precarious legal position: If she has used her private email to conduct county business and she fights the release of those records in court, she could be forced to hire a private attorney at her own expense. And if she loses in court, she could also be liable for the legal costs of the media organizations that are seeking the records.
Miller’s departure from the board meeting today came after a highly unusual moment: She was directly questioned by Dylan Smith, the editor and publisher of the Tucson Sentinel, about when she would comply with his records request. Smith was asked by board members to discuss his experience in trying to get public records from Miller’s office.
The Sentinel, along with the Tucson Weekly and Arizona Daily Star, has been digging into what Miller knew about a purported news website that was launched last month by a staffer in Miller’s office under a false identity. The employee, Tim DesJarlais, initially denied being behind the website but after he quit his job in Miller’s office, he confessed to launching the Arizona Daily Herald.
Miller initially stood behind DesJarlais and lashed out at the press for besmirching his reputation, but has since called for him to face criminal charges for filing a cyber–crime report with the FBI at her urging that now appears to have been a false report.
While the episode with DesJarlais was an embarrassment for Miller, she has come under increased criticism from the press and her fellow board members for her slow response to public-records requests from the Sentinel, Weekly and Star that could help shed light on whether she and other members of her District 1 office had knowledge of DesJarlais’ masquerading as a reporter. She also said she wanted to bill the news organizations thousands of dollars for the public records.
Once Board Chair Sharon Bronson asked for a discussion of the records request on the agenda for today’s meeting, Miller began releasing the records last week, but they were heavily redacted.
In addition to voting to require the release of records created on private devices, the Board also voted today to have Clerk of the Board Robin Brigode examine the records that the media have requested and release them with more limited redactions.
The board also voted to develop a new policy regarding media requests for public records in order to avoid allowing the subject of records request be in charge of redacting the information released.
Miller, who has frequently criticized other board members and County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry as corrupt and incompetent, is running for a second term on the board this year. She faces Republican John Winchester in the August primary and, if she survives that, Democrat Brian Bickel in the November general election. Both Bickel and Winchester were in the audience today as Miller faced criticism from her fellow board members over the public-records controversy.
This article appears in Jun 16-22, 2016.
Gulp!
Kinda funny that Miller points fingers at others as “corrupt and incompetent” and as it turns out she’s incredibly incompetent at keeping her corruption quiet.
Question is: How long did it take Ally to figure out DesJarlais was lying . . . makes her look really stupid!
Strange silence from Breaking Winds and Ratface T. I wonder why….
Typical tea party Republican. Every one is accountable but them.
Her opponent, John WInchester is a proven collaborator with experience building partnerships.
WinchesterForSupervisor.com
I am surprised that you care about government officials emails now. You had three years to comment on Hillary Clinton’s emails and the national security they put at risk. I didn’t hear one of you.
http://www.politico.com/magazine
I guess your favorite media outlet never did report it.
Ignorance is bliss.
I predict she will be locked in her home wanting PCSD protection. Talk about crashing and burning. She got a bit full of herself and it looks like she did something shady and is covering it up. It’s all a guessing game since she hasn’t been forthcoming. Innocent people do not behave in this manner, but I’ll still hold out judgement until they release the information with less redacting and from her private emails. It’s looking like she’s a one and done Board Supervisor.
Redacted documents are not worth the paper they are printed on.
Wouldn’t it be swell to have a Board of Supervisors who were actually trustworthy? Too bad that will never happen in Pima County.
REALLY? So I am supposed to believe that only the lone Republican on the Board conducted county business on personal email. I say BS to that. The Democrat curs should be fighting for Ally just as they support that LIar Hillary.
Hillary DELETED 32,000 emails from her server.
The State Dept concluded their investigation by saying she lied and violated department rules.
http://www.redstate.com/leon_h_wolf/2016/05/25/breaking-state-department-audit-concludes-hillary-clinton-lied-broke-federal-regulations-private-email-server/
Trump is onto something about foreign donors and her email. Was it because they were sponsors of terror and supporters of executing gays? Or has that been the democratic platform under “hope and change?”
Too bad Miller has out lived her mandate to give Chuckeberry the rash he so richly deserves. She is just a mess, her use by date has expired.
Our county collects the highest property taxes in AZ with not much to show for it.
God knows where the money goes. Not for roads.
We need a new board and a reduction in property taxes.
Jim, thanks for sticking with this story. Initially, it seemed like a trivial distraction to me, but it has proven to offer insights into the beliefs and values of one elected official and has also brought to light the need to overhaul some county policies in the interest of more transparency and accountability. Local government has the greatest effect on our daily lives, so let’s hope this issue also helps to raise interest in all the BOS races this year. It very much matters who we pick to serve in those five positions!
If only the media was as outraged over the years long refusal of the City of Tucson to fully provide public documents regarding the proposed sale of the El Rio Golf Course. Of course, that deal would have given away millions of dollars of taxpayer assets, while this story is about the hated Ally Miller who dares to question King Chuckles. I am no Miller fan, and she deserves to be skewered, but the hypocracy of the Weakly and the Star is breathtaking. The stupidity of a 19 year old vs institutional corruption, and one is treated as all important while the latter is virtually ignored. Maybe Miller should change her name to Clinton…
Whenever anyone is as needlessly and hopelessly distracting as Miller has been, always trying to change the subject — and that goes for her knee-jerk “defenders” too, with their irrelevant burbles about Clinton (yes, she’s distracting, too, but not here in Pima Co.) — you know he or she is complicit in a deceit: that he or she is trying to hide something, protect someone, cover for a bad idea, or all of these. Here’s to John Winchester’s win in the District 1 primary.
This lady seems to be having a meltdown. Her behavior makes no sense.
If so, she’s been having one her entire term in office. For health reasons — the health of the County — a second term would not be advised.
What kind of supposedly respected elected government official hires a nineteen year old knucklehead like this kid in the first place????
Good help must be hard to find………
It is such a relief to live in another faraway district without all this drama.