Beau Satori, a Eureka Springs resident and former mayor, received a response from city attorney Forrest Jacobi on Tuesday, Nov. 14, regarding a request for public information, one day after Satori told the city council that the request had been denied and suggested he might pursue criminal charges.
Satori said Wednesday that he filed the request, pursuant to the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, by mail on Nov. 1.
A few days later, Satori said, he received a certified letter from the city quoting a section of the FOIA regarding exemptions to the law.
“It purports to be a quote from the 20th edition of The Freedom of Information Handbook which I have one here, of course,” Satori told the city council during the public comments portion of its regular meeting on Monday, Nov. 13. “And in it it says, a person can be denied who ‘at the time of the request has pleaded guilty or has been found guilty of a felony.’ But there’s no period there. So I look in the book and see all of the rest of it. It says ‘convicted of a felony and is incarcerated in a correctional facility.’ … So, whoever sent me this, just sort of redid the handbook. But they dropped the rest of the sentence, which is what gave it purpose.”
The FOIA states that “access to inspect and copy … public records shall be denied to … (a) person who at the time of the request has pleaded guilty to or been found guilty of a felony and is incarcerated in a correctional facility.”
Satori pleaded guilty to a felony tax charge in 2003 in a case that was later expunged.
Satori told the city council there was no indication of who had sent the letter.
“And so I need to know whether it’s Kim or Ida that I need to file charges against,” he said, referring to mayoral assistant Kim Stryker and city clerk treasurer Ida Meyer. “This is fraud.”
During his comments to the city council, Satori said he didn’t believe Meyer sent the letter.
“And if it was you, you were probably working under the direction of Ms. Stryker over there,” he said. “But I would like for the council to look into this sort of thing because if people are going to start making up stuff and purporting it to be law and registered mailing it out to me, then you’re in jeopardy. And we don’t need anymore jeopardy. I don’t want to file any suits. I don’t want to file charges. I don’t want to do any of that. I just want my FOIA answered, legally. But as long as you have Kim Stryker in the office it’s always, you know, a crapshoot as far as getting things done.”
On Wednesday, Satori said he was sorry that he put Meyer “on the spot.” He said Stryker had cited the same reasoning for denying a request for information earlier this year, doing so in person. After that incident, he said he had not filed any more requests for information until recently.
“I was so annoyed with my treatment by Kim Stryker earlier this year that I had not done any FOIs,” Satori said. “And so when I did — I was interested in information about this other case — and so I put it in a letter form, to see how they would respond.”
Satori said that Jacobi left a telephone voicemail and also emailed Satori on Tuesday, but Satori was unable to read the email because a portion of it was highlighted in yellow and the text was in white.
“I couldn’t read it,” Satori said. “My eyes won’t distinguish that.”
Jacobi sent another email to Satori on Wednesday. He stated that there were no records responsive to Satori’s request, which asked for communications from former parks commissioner Dave Hartmann and former city advertising and promotion commission director Scott Bardin urging the CAPC not to hire or contract with Tracy Johnson along with any communication to the same effect from any current or former parks or CAPC commissioners or employees. Satori’s request specified that he was seeking information from Oct. 31, 2016, through Oct. 31, 2023.
Johnson worked as events coordinator for the CAPC on a contract basis in 2019 and 2020. She is one of several plaintiffs in an ongoing lawsuit against defendants including Stryker, several former CAPC commissioners and Mayor Butch Berry.
Satori said Wednesday that Jacobi confirmed the certified letter denying his request was sent by Stryker.
Neither Stryker nor Jacobi responded to email messages from the Times-Echo on Wednesday, Nov. 15.
