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City to pay legal fees in suit over documents
By ANNE LINDBERG, Times Staff Writer PINELLAS PARK -- The city attorney has agreed to pay $1,500 in costs and lawyers' fees for refusing to release public records. The agreement, reached Monday, allowed Pinellas Park to avoid appearing in front of a judge who would have determined what costs and fees, if any, were due. The St. Petersburg Times sued Pinellas Park last summer after officials refused to release a city employee's personnel file and other documents. A Pinellas-Pasco circuit court judge ordered the city to release the records or explain why the city believed the records should not be released. In response, city attorney Ed Foreman wrote a letter saying the city had not refused to release the records. Instead, Foreman wrote, he was reviewing the documents to determine if they were exempt from public disclosure. Foreman said the process would take some time because there were many documents and he had been ill, including losing vision in one eye. Pinellas Park turned over the documents, which included the personnel file of Doris Prather, before the court deadline. The records showed that Prather had been fired from her job as a senior staff assistant in the city's personnel office after being accused of breaking drug laws and falsifying records. Prather has since been arrested and charged with 15 counts of fraudulently obtaining prescriptions and withholding information from her doctors. Prather has denied any wrongdoing.
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From the Times South Pinellas desks Letters |
