Opinion: Keeping it secret in Perkins Twp.

If you had passed out while in your car waiting in the drive-through line at the Taco Bell, chances are local police would have tracked you down and filed a police report regarding their interaction with you. But two weeks after an alleged incident involving a high-profile Perkins Township employee -- a police officer -- there still is no report detailing what happened in the wee hours overnight on Thanksgiving. * Click here to take the poll: Should the police department release the report? * Police chief Ken Klamar promised the reports would be released on Thursday, but he went back on his word citing the advice of the township's part-time law director. Klamar suggested the reports were being withheld in compliance with the Ohio Revised Code, but he could not remember what portion of the law was being used to block public access to the facts. Klamar also suggested the Fraternal Order of Police union has some standing in deciding whether a public record is a public record. He also said the reporter should contact the law director, John Coppeler, for additional information. The reporter did that but Coppeler was not picking up his phone after a marathon closed-door meeting with trustees on Thursday. The public was barred from the meeting and it has been barred for two weeks now from knowing what happened. It's a secret. "I can only say that I feel John Coppeler is doing his normal good job for Perkins Township," trustee Mike Printy wrote in an email in response to an editorial in the Register on Monday. Perkins Township law director John CoppelerPerkins Township police chief Ken KlamarPerkins Township trustee Mike Printy