This newspaper has filed 26 open record requests with the city of Roswell regarding an ongoing investigation of the Roswell Police Department.

To date, one record has been delivered on time.

Several key files have been reported as "missing" or "lost."

Other files are incomplete.

This is a continuing story of the city’s ongoing efforts to stonewall or stall a legitimate media investigation of the Roswell Police Department. This newspaper filed the first open records requests on Monday, September 27. The city administrator, Kay Love, contacted us and suggested we be more specific due to size of the files.

We obliged, and sent amended requests on Wednesday, September 29.

We were then contacted by the City Clerk’s office, and told the records were not going to be available for viewing until Friday, October 15.

According to O.C.G.A. 50-18-70, the Georgia Open Records act, records are to be available within 72 hours, or three business days of the request. However the city did not make the records available to us for up to 12 business days.

When one of our Beacon reporters went to peruse the files, she found key files missing, including an Internal Affairs investigation. City official Diane Taylor said the RPD simply could not find some of the files requested.

SECOND BATCH OF REQUESTS: MORE OF THE SAME

After more RPD officers came forward, we sent additional open records requests on October 4, 2010. We specifically asked for these records to be available for our viewing on October 15, 2010, a full week after the legal requirement.

However, the records were not made available, and we were told they wouldn’t be accessible until October 20, 2010. When questioned, Taylor maintained that the documents in question "have not been sent over from next door [RPD]."

The only documents available on October 21 were the two requests from October 4. One of the files only supplied one aspect of the four requested. When we questioned Taylor again, she explained that all but one of the missing files have to come over from the RPD. Taylor claimed she had yet to receive them, but promised she "would check into it."

Shortly thereafter, city clerk Sue Creel explained that city attorney David Davidson was pulling the records himself, and that Davidson and Love were pouring over each file individually before they could be released.

We then asked Taylor about a grievance filed against RPD Captain Donald Moss by cops for a “hostile work environment." Although multiple cops told us about the filing, the city denied its authenticity and told us no file on the topic existed.