David Olsen
Executive Director
305 South Main Street
Jefferson, WI 53549

Dear Mr. Olsen,

I have received your September 8 letter about the August 3 CIA tape recording.

This petty debate over oral statements can be avoided with ease. I am sure that this entire process of CIA and JDC open records requests will be greatly expedited by rapid, precise, written (not oral) responses from you, the custodian, "as soon as practicable and without delay" as the law demands.

Perhaps you can store and catalog all your audio tapes of CIA and JDC meetings at the Carnegie Building, and provide public access to them as required by law. Similarly, perhaps you can inform me of the process by which I can inspect CIA and JDC records in person at your office, as law requires.
It has been a month since the CIA confirmed its openness.

It is my recollection that on August 10 you said you thought you erased over the CIA tape by recording the JDC meeting that occurred that same morning, but that you weren't sure. I asked you to confirm this statement, one way or the other, because your statement seemed indefinite and hedging to me. You said you would double-check and get back to me. I asked where the tape was located. You said it might be at your home or it might be in your car, but that it wasn't in the Carnegie Building.

Sadly, you didn't record or recall the details of this conversation. You did feel the need to open brand-new tapes to record several hours of our in-person conversations at your office in August, so I am surprised by your re-use of public meeting tapes and the easy availability of fresh tapes when you want to preserve what I say.

In these subsequent recorded conversations, as you note I did ask if you had made any progress in finding the tape. Again I found your answers hedging and indefinite, which explains my repetitive requests for clarification and led to my August 20 written request for the CIA tape.

In e-mail and fax on August 17 and 18, and in my August 20 letter, I informed you of the requirements of Wis. Stat. 19.21(7), where it describes that you shouldn't be erasing tapes of public meetings.

In my written open records request of September 8, I requested access to the audio tape of the August 10 meeting of the JDC. It was this recording which you originally claimed might have obliterated the August 3 CIA recording. Again more tapes were quickly and illegally destroyed. In a phone conversation on September 8 you claimed this JDC meeting tape had been erased as well.

Given the previous debate over the CIA tape, and the statement of JDC President Gaylin Morgan in the Daily Union that "we expected this decision" from the District Attorney, I am surprised that you have erased public meeting tapes with such abandon, yet I'm flattered that you managed to retain the tapes of one-on-one conversations with me.

So far, I have not had rapid responses to my records requests. Depending on whether you consider my oral request or my written request, it took almost a month or at least several weeks for you to send this written confirmation that the CIA tape had been erased. I have had no response to my records request dated August 26. Nearly a month passed before my July 16 request was fulfilled.

At 10 a.m. September 8, I'd delivered my request for the August 10 JDC tape, and in our conversation later that afternoon you stated you were working on a response to my August 20 request, yet you said nothing about its availability in your letter.

Please relay a copy of this letter to the CIA Board of Directors. If you have any questions, please call me at 674-5200.

Sincerely,

John J. Foust
235 South Main Street
Jefferson, WI 53549

cc: District Attorney David Wambach