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Arizona greyhound racing – another black eye

by on Aug. 09, 2012, under Animal News, Dogs, Canines, Fun with Fido, Barking Encouraged, Greyhounds
Dog muzzled inside cage at the South Tucson track

Dog muzzled inside cage at the South Tucson track

Question: When is a public records request not a public records request?  Answer: When it’s sent to the Arizona Department of Racing. The Arizona Department of Racing is a state agency. And for the past gazillion years, it’s been funded by you the taxpayer from the state’s General Fund. Here, it’s an agency that regulates horse racing, county fair horse racing, dog racing, and boxing … all forms of entertainment that rakes in millions of dollars every year – yet – this regulating agency has relied on your tax dollars to pay its salaries and keep it operating until the past year where it was partially funded and this year as of July 2012 is 100% self funded. However, $250,000 will come out of the General Fund to pay for Breeder Awards which was voted for by your AZ legislature.

For now you can peruse last year’s budget here. Oh by the way, Tucson Greyhound Park still gets a hardship tax credit, something it has been privy to since 1995.

Nevertheless for the past few years, when making a public records request for injury reports at Tucson Greyhound Park, has been like asking to see CIA documents. None are forthcoming. The same can be said for disposition logs.

When Phoenix Greyhound Park closed in December 2009, I contacted a reporter from a Phoenix alt weekly asking her to do a story on the disposition of the dogs after the Phoenix track closed. She liked the idea. However, the powers that be at the time at Arizona Department of Racing didn’t like the idea. They said the disposition logs were not in their possession. They said they could request the logs from Phoenix Greyhound Park but decided not to. End of story.

To me that was the story. I told the reporter the fact that Arizona Department of Racing wouldn’t ask for the logs was a big story. It didn’t get pursued.

It’s no secret that I despise greyhound racing and I always will. While I have gotten to know and like some of the people who make their living from this grisly “sport,” I still hate it and want it to end.

Aside from greyhound racing being state-sanctioned animal abuse, it has also been unaccountable. According to yesterday’s e-alert distributed by GREY2K USA, the alert demonstrates how injury report requests to the Arizona Department of Racing have been repeatedly denied but yet they exist. The alert also shows the number of injuries at Tucson Greyhound Park in certain months and the state civil servants bantering back and forth of what should be done about the situation.

Duh. This is nothing new. Month after month, year after year excuses abound but nobody makes anyone accountable. In the report, the condition of the track is mentioned. It’s mentioned here and it’s mentioned here too. Maybe Tucson Greyhound Park should close down until they figure out how to fix the track condition problem once and for all.

I personally am still waiting for Mr. Nolan Thompson, Assistant Director of Racing,  to call me back after I called him a few months ago about some canine flu quarantine rumor.  He was going to check it out and left me know. Still waiting…Mr. Thompson…

Is this something for the Goldwater Institute? Don’t they investigate public record request refusals? “The Goldwater Institute’s Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation provides free legal representation to Arizonans whose constitutional rights are violated by government.”

Recently a governor-appointed Department of Racing Commissioner stated that he wanted to make it much more difficult for citizen groups to submit public information requests, and also suggested that confidential tips of greyhound cruelty should not be reported to authorities. He has since publicly apologized.

What you can do is send an email to Governor Brewer and ask her to enforce public record requests for Tucson Greyhound Park. As an Arizona taxpayer you have that right.

And as an animal lover, please do it for the greyhounds.

(Photo courtesy GREY2K USA from a PACC public information request.)

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2012 at 1:58 am and is filed under Animal News, Dogs, Canines, Fun with Fido, Barking Encouraged, Greyhounds. Tags for this post: , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  • Mark_B_Evans

    The fact that a private entity is regulated by a government agency or that it receives tax subsidies do not make its records public. To get the injury logs, the state would have to require that race tracks submit them to the state agency as part of its regulation and the agency would have to “maintain” them as part of its regulatory duties. Then, assuming the Legislature doesn’t exempt the records from review, which it frequently does for businesses it requires to submit reports (such as hospitals), the state agency would have to release the record.
    Also, if as part of its duties, the regulatory agency is required to annually (or some other timeframe) review or inspect a company’s records, such as injury reports, but not “maintain” them, then those reports also remain out of the reach of a public records request.
    But if the state agency creates a report that it maintains as a result of that records review, that report would be public record.

    Some tips for determining what records an agency has in its possession that you can get your hands on:
    - Review all state statues governing the agency. Legislation often requires agencies to make and keep all kinds of records, reports and data.
    http://www.google.com/search?q=arizona+revised+statutes&aq=f&sugexp=chrome,mod=15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

    - Review the Administrative Code governing that agency. Once a government passes a law, the bureaucrats then write the rules for that law’s administration.
    http://www.azsos.gov/public_services/table_of_contents.htm

    - Request all reports the agency submits each year to the AZ Dept of Library and Archives. All state agencies have to abide by records retention rules. These communications often include clues to types of records the agency has on hand, intends to destroy and the like. When an agency wants to destroy records, it has to fill out a Certificat of Records Destruction. Get those certificates and you get a guide to what they keep on hand and you can then request those.
    http://www.azlibrary.gov/

    - For agencies that have inspection regimes, get the SOPs or policies and procedures manuals for the inspectors. These manuals will have detailed descriptions of the types of records inspectors are required to fill out. Not all of those records will be open to inspection (CPS reports, for instance) but most will.

    Other tips
    - Refer any denial to the state ombudsman (such as she is):
    http://www.azleg.gov/ombudsman/default.asp

    - Read the tip sheet by Dave Cuilier:
    http://www.ananews.com/wordpress/index.php/resources/

    • Karyn_Zoldan

      Hi Mark, thanks so much for your post and general tips.

      It is my understanding that TGP is not a private entity like a restaurant that must, for example, obey
      public health laws, pay sales tax and have non-discriminatory policies. It is quasi-public because
      it must share its revenues by law with Arizona. That’s how pari-mutuel wagering works.

      Gambling,
      as you know is illegal unless authorized. Historically, when and if
      a host state authorizes gambling, it also receives a cut of the bets
      placed. That’s the deal that TGP and all racetracks across this country
      struck with their home states to obtain permission to operate.

      Of course, TGP
      benefits by a “hardship” tax credit exemption and does not actually pay the
      so-called pari-mutuel tax anymore, but the pari-mutuel tax was the basis of its
      license. And for the accountants reading this post, the exemption is a credit and not a deduction.

      Since TGP is not a private entity, and because it is quasi-public, the
      records of state regulators are subject to Sunshine laws. In this case,
      Dr. Carlton can play hot potato with injury records and not hold onto
      them (if that is even true), but the moment he has regular access to
      them and uses them in his official business, they belong to the citizens
      who pay his salary.

      • Mark_B_Evans

        By my reading of this rule in the Administrative Code, these are public records. You should be able to obtain them. It doesn’t matter whether they’re not in the possession of the Department of Racing but kept either at the track or by the veteranarian. You may have to sue to get them. But first, file a request, give them a date to respond. If they don’t respond or deny, then appeal to the ombudsman. Call me and I’ll help you craft your request.
        The code:
        http://www.azsos.gov/public_services/Title_19/19-02.htm#ARTICLE_3

        M. Veterinarians

        …

        8. Every
        veterinarian licensed by the Department shall keep a written record of the
        veterinarian’s practice on the grounds of a permittee relating to greyhounds
        participating in racing.

        a. This
        record shall include:

        i. The
        name of the greyhound treated;

        ii. The
        nature of the greyhound’s ailment;

        iii. The
        type of treatment prescribed and performed for the greyhounds; and

        iv. The
        date and time of such treatment.

        b. The
        veterinarian shall keep this record for practice engaged in at all licensed tracks.

        c. The
        veterinarian shall produce this record without delay upon request of the
        stewards or the Department.

        • Karyn_Zoldan

          Thanks. Will call later today.

  • SeattleLeslie

    I may be wrong but when public records are requested and used to solicit donations and funding, then requests do not have to be forthcoming. Information for information sake is one thing and its transparency is important but utilizing information paid for by the taxpayers for self-gain is not.

    • http://profile.yahoo.com/V24WOJGBAIO6QRBDBTOPPD4DPQ Ado

      If this is in fact the case, then the state should have some recourse, such as heavy fines that would offset any funds they obtained by using the information for fund raising purposes.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/V24WOJGBAIO6QRBDBTOPPD4DPQ Ado

    O.K. Public records ought be available to the public. On this matter there is no question or defense for politicians and their appointees who refuse to obey statutes and make these records available, I am very much an animal lover, having most recently had a Whippet Hound for a house puppy for seven and a half years. Nope, didn’t race him, although it is generally acknowledged a Whippet will beat a Greyhound in shorter distance races. Whippets have more muscle per pound of body mass than Greyhounds even though they are around 1/3 the weight and size.

    Anyway, that being said, here is what I had to say to our dear guv regarding this matter:

    Dear Honorable Janice K. Brewer, Governor,
    As an animal lover, I am disappointed to the point of outrage at Arizona’s public servants whose job it is to keep public records regarding Greyhound racing who are making those records they are being paid with tax dollars to keep, unavailable to the general public, when a valid public records request is made. Is such arrogance toward the voters and taxpayers something you wish your administration to be remembered for? I think we all can agree that our elected officials and their political appointees can do a whole lot better when it comes to the release of public documents regarding animal welfare at Tucson Greyhound Park. Kindly counsel your subordinates to make these records available to the voters and taxpayers who have a genuine and valid interest in animal welfare. Thank you.

    • Karyn_Zoldan

      Ado
      Thanks so much for writing the letter to Gov. Brewer

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