Item: City won't name names on salaries/CdA Press

More info: Coeur d'Alene city officials are refusing to disclose the full identities of city employees, after an Idaho Public Records Act request from the Idaho Freedom Foundation, a non-profit, non-partisan group that's in the process of developing a government transparency Web site. Wayne Hoffman, IFF head, asked for names, titles, departments and rates of pay for each city employee, but the city's human resources director, Pam MacDonald, sent a list that withheld first names, saying, "First names will not be provided because that would indicate gender." The Idaho law specifically states that the "public service or employment history, classification, pay grade and step, longevity, gross salary and salary history, status, workplace and employing agency" of a current or former public official is a public record in Idaho, and is available to the public. It does exempt other personnel info, including race, sex, marital status and birth date, but says nothing about withholding names.

Hoffman, a former aide to then-Congressman Bill Sali, said, "So far, the city of Coeur d’Alene is the only entity in the state to use gender identification as a means to hide public information." Other cities have promptly turned over the info, including Twin Falls, which responded to Hoffman's request the same day.

Secrecy always prompts this question: What are they hiding?