Former City Manager Ajibola Balogun is suing South Miami once more.

The suit, filed Thursday, is meant to speed up part of a records request submitted early last month.

The city clerk says some of those records are not available.

As part of Balogun's legal disputes with the city in the wake of his recent firing, attorney Neil Flaxman submitted a public records request on Oct. 9 asking for:

• Records of all calls made and received by the five commission members since Jan. 1.

• Copies of all written communication between Balogun and commissioners and all written communication among commissioners about Balogun since Jan. 1.

City Clerk Maria Menendez acknowledged the request by e-mail the same day, saying she would produce the records as soon as possible. ``However,'' she wrote, ``we will depend on the assistance of other departments over which my office has little control.''

About a week later, the city clerk's office produced some of the records Flaxman requested in the second part of the request,more than 2,000 pages of documents.

``What they gave me was documents from the commissioners to the manager and from the manager to the commissioners,'' Flaxman said Friday. ``They still haven't given me the documents between commissioners about the manager.''

On Oct. 28, Flaxman sent another records request for the outstanding documents.

He is seeking communications between the elected officials or between the officials and any third parties, Flaxman added, to check for any Sunshine Law violations in connection with the firing. The Sunshine Law requires that government entities conduct their business in public.

The former manager was dismissed during an Oct. 6 commission meeting.

As of Thursday, the city hadn't yet released the rest of the records.

``We don't have the phone records. The city doesn't keep them because the commissioners use their private lines,'' Menendez said on Friday.

Menendez added that commissioners get a monthly stipend of about $80 for phone expenses.

According to Florida law, requests for public records must be completed within a ``reasonable'' amount of time. The law doesn't specify what is a reasonable interval.

``We don't believe the records are that difficult to obtain,'' Flaxman said. ``We just want them within a reasonable amount of time.''

Balogun is also requesting that the city reimburse him for any legal fees incurred in connection with the records lawsuit.

Join the discussion

The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. In order to post comments, you must be a registered user of MiamiHerald.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

     Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first

@Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@:

@Nyx.repliedToText@

@Nyx.replyAnswerText@

Reply to this Comment @Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@