TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Two years ago, Orlando television reporter Mike DeForest requested some routine travel and budget expenses from a state agency that had given him contractor license records within days, but this request took more than three months. He decided to ask why, so he asked for more records.
After months of delays, the WKMG-TV investigative reporter got lawyers involved and only then did the governor’s office turn over records — a 10-page handwritten log of public records requested by the public that were under review by the governor’s office.
The log recorded the date the request was received and the date the documents were returned. It was titled “Papers Routed Through EOG Legal,” and it revealed that while state agencies often assembled documents within days of receiving a public records request, if the request was made by reporters or involved information of high value to the governor, the Executive Office of the Governor (EOG) kept them for review, where they sat for as long as nine months.
