OVERLAND PARK – A student journalist is suing Johnson County Community College, saying the college is dancing around the Kansas Open Records law by overcharging him for public documents. An attorney for Marcus Clem, 21, told the Kansas City Star that while he was working for the student newspaper, the Campus Ledger, he made a request under the KansasOpen Records law for seven months of e-mails between a former college employee, who had been abruptly fired, and the employee’s supervisor. He said school administrators told the student newspaper that getting the information would require “a significant amount of time and expense” and demanded more than $47,000 in advance. A spokesman said the charge was reasonable, saying that the college would have had to contract with an outside technology firm and it would have taken 450 hours to retrieve the e-mails, plus more time for an attorney to review them. Eventually the college produced a few e-mails. Clem said he found no wrong-doing by the college but he said the whole situation shows the college could be hiding something.
Friday, Oct. 7, 4 a.m.
