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Jackblog

I'm Tired of These Mothaflippin Snakes (and Exorbitant Copy Fees) in This Mothaflippin Clerk's Office!!!

I was just at the Hinds County Circuit Clerk's doing research for a story , and a couple of employees were talking about a mini-plague of serpents in the basement office.

This week, employees have stumbled across five earth snakes in the file room, Circuit Clerk Barbara Dunn said. Earth snakes are nonvenomous and grow up to around 8 inches. Employees said they have been unable to ascertain how the asps are getting in the building.

The thing that really made my skin crawl, though, was being charged $1 per page to make copies. Mississippi has some of the nation's worst open-records laws, which makes a lot of documents public but lets government agencies charge whatever they want. What stung the most was that I had to make the copies myself, and still had to fork out $84 for a pretty skimpy stack of paper (pictured).

Where's Nick Fury when you need him?

http://jacksonfreepress.com/users/photos/2013/apr/24/11644/">https://jacksonfreepress.media.clients.ellingtoncms.com/img/photos/2013/04/24/IMAG0986_t500x299.jpg?f66b350c98fdfaa1a1a06ecf04a3e172ff0eb998" alt="None">

by R.L. Nave

http://jacksonfreepress.com/users/photos/2013/apr/24/11645/">https://jacksonfreepress.media.clients.ellingtoncms.com/img/photos/2013/04/24/snakes_on_plane.jpeg" alt="None">

by R.L. Nave

Comments

donnaladd 10 years, 11 months ago

Make no mistake: Charging a media outlet or a member of the public a dollar of page to make our own copies is a barrier to transparency, and we are not pleased. Expect to hear more from us on this.

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Tom_Head 10 years, 11 months ago

This is only tangentially related, but did Dunn ever get around to processing those 10,000 NAACP voter registration forms she was dragging her feet on last year?

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ryannave 10 years, 11 months ago

It's not that tangential. When I was there yesterday, I got an earful from an employee who said my stories got her trouble. I haven't heard any more about the forms, but I'll check with the NAACP when I talk to them this week.

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robbier 10 years, 11 months ago

There's got to be a company who can digitize all of this?

Would streamline everything for the media and for the regular joe.

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