Rep. Stanley T. Torres, R-Saipan, earlier asked NMC to divulge how much taxpayer money was spent to settle its employees’ dispute.
Torres told NMC President Carmen Fernandez his request is merely for information regarding NMC-employment claims — how much and where NMC got the money to pay the settlements.
“Even if the requested settlement agreements contain personal information, NMC is free to redact any and all personal information and still comply with my request,” he noted in his letter to Fernandez.
But on Thursday, NMC’s counsel Mark A. Scoggins told Torres that the law “does not require public agencies to create documents as you have requested.”
Scoggins said “records which invade the privacy of an individual or business entity” are not “public records.”
“In this situation, you have requested ‘personal information in files maintained for employees…other than names, present and past position titles, grades, salaries and duty stations.’ …These records would be exempt from public inspection and copying,” he said.
“It would not be possible to simply redact personal information from the type of document you have described. The existence of such a document would itself be personal information exempted from disclosure under the Open Government Act, and disclosure of such information would also constitute an invasion of privacy,” he added.
But Torres said the local courts already ruled in favor of full disclosure regarding public records involving the use of public funds.
“NMC must be stopped from squandering more public funds to litigate this issue when there is a simple solution,” he said.
