Louisville Courier Journal Editorial: "BOGUS Emergency". I AGREE!
Bogus emergency
The end run done by Kentucky's child welfare officials around an unfavorable court decision does not serve the people of the commonwealth. Nor does it burnish the reputation of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services. Nor does it protect or empower the children the cabinet purports to help.
Outrage is the proper response to the “emergency regulations” quietly filed early this year by the cabinet to avoid further compliance with a judge's order that forced the release of hundreds of pages of documents regarding the death of a Wayne County toddler who died after drinking drain cleaner at an alleged methamphetamine lab. The boy and his 14-year-old mother had been under the supervision of state social workers. The Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader had sued to gain access to the documents, and last year Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd found in favor of opening the records.
As Jon Fleischaker, an attorney for this newspaper and the Kentucky Press Association, said, “There is no emergency. The so-called emergency is that they don't want people to know what they're doing.”
On top of the emergency regulations, the cabinet has asked state Rep. Tom Burch, D-Louisville, to sponsor a bill that would set up an outside panel — bound with confidentiality, sworn to secrecy and whose meetings would be closed to the public — to review child deaths and near-deaths in Kentucky. (The state recently ranked No. 1 in the nation for child deaths from abuse and neglect.) Even though he supports the idea of the panel, Rep. Burch does not support excessive confidentiality. “I think it's wrong to try to circumvent a judge's decision by filing an emergency regulation,” he said. “I'm tired of the cabinet trying to cover its hind end every time a kid gets killed.”
Secrecy is not a virtue when it comes to the people's business, and the well-being of Kentucky's children is decidedly the people's business — as is how well, or how poorly, the state's child welfare department is working.
Editor's comment: One has to wonder what the Cabinet so DESPERATELY wants to HIDE from public scrutiny!
The end run done by Kentucky's child welfare officials around an unfavorable court decision does not serve the people of the commonwealth. Nor does it burnish the reputation of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services. Nor does it protect or empower the children the cabinet purports to help.
Outrage is the proper response to the “emergency regulations” quietly filed early this year by the cabinet to avoid further compliance with a judge's order that forced the release of hundreds of pages of documents regarding the death of a Wayne County toddler who died after drinking drain cleaner at an alleged methamphetamine lab. The boy and his 14-year-old mother had been under the supervision of state social workers. The Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader had sued to gain access to the documents, and last year Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd found in favor of opening the records.
As Jon Fleischaker, an attorney for this newspaper and the Kentucky Press Association, said, “There is no emergency. The so-called emergency is that they don't want people to know what they're doing.”
On top of the emergency regulations, the cabinet has asked state Rep. Tom Burch, D-Louisville, to sponsor a bill that would set up an outside panel — bound with confidentiality, sworn to secrecy and whose meetings would be closed to the public — to review child deaths and near-deaths in Kentucky. (The state recently ranked No. 1 in the nation for child deaths from abuse and neglect.) Even though he supports the idea of the panel, Rep. Burch does not support excessive confidentiality. “I think it's wrong to try to circumvent a judge's decision by filing an emergency regulation,” he said. “I'm tired of the cabinet trying to cover its hind end every time a kid gets killed.”
Secrecy is not a virtue when it comes to the people's business, and the well-being of Kentucky's children is decidedly the people's business — as is how well, or how poorly, the state's child welfare department is working.
Editor's comment: One has to wonder what the Cabinet so DESPERATELY wants to HIDE from public scrutiny!
Labels: Keeping them honest, News reporting
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 10:05 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home