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City of Great Falls Ordered to Release Sealed Documents

City of Great Falls Ordered to Release Sealed Documents

By KFBB News Team

Story Created: Mar 9, 2010 at 9:12 PM MST

Story Updated: Mar 9, 2010 at 10:29 PM MST

Following a lengthy legal battle, a judge has ruled that the City of Great Falls must release documents regarding its relationship with Southern Montana Electric and its partnership to build the Highwood Generating Station.

The city had refused to disclose 10,000 to 17,000 pages of documents citing reasons of attorney-client privilege trade secret protection. But a successful lawsuit by Montana Environmental Information Center means that those documents will be made public.

Construction on The Highwood Generating Station could begin as early as this summer. Recently, it was announced that $85 million worth of financing will build the first 40-megawatt phase of the project. Last week, the City Commission voted to abolish the Electric City Power Board.

Today, Judge E. Wayne Phillips of Lewistown ruled in favor of the plaintiff, Montana Environmental Information Center, that the city must release the thousands of pages of documents.

"This means that the sunshine law still exists,” said Ron Gessaman of Citizens for Clean Energy. “Citizens deserve the right to have access to all government documents."

“I'm not an environmentalist. This is about transparency," said Great Falls City Commissioner Mary Jolley.

In his ruling Judge Phillips had some harsh words for the city regarding this lawsuit.

"...Defendants did not review the documents thoroughly but, in this Court's opinion, literally and figuratively dumped two boxes of documents on the Court's desk and expected the Court to do the work."

"The document reviews previously outlined are filled with nonsense documents that could never be construed as privileged in any way."

But will the release of these documents have any effect on the future of the natural gas fired power plant east of Great Falls?

"It might not affect it at all,” Jolley said. “But it means that residents of Great Falls can expect to get answers when they ask questions or request documents."

City of Great Falls fiscal officer Coleen Balzarini, who was in favor of keeping the documents sealed, could not be reached for comment.

New City Attorney James Santoro, said the city has no intention to appeal the ruling. The judge has given the city 10 days to present reasons why four specific documents need to be sealed. Otherwise, they too will be disclosed, along with the thousands of pages ordered to be released.

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