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We need to weigh the purposes and drawbacks of policies and try to strike a balance in practice. In the case of public records, the purpose presumably is to fi

• dvtrn 7y ago
  We need to weigh the purposes and drawbacks of policies and try to strike a balance in practice. In the case of public records, the purpose presumably is to fight corruption and maintain an informed electorate; the injury to personal privacy a major drawback. 100% agreed. Monetary costs for records is a common approach to this, although many agencies allow for the costs to be waived at the request of the querying individual. It's entirely up to the queried agency to decide if they want to waive those costs or not, and it's a roll of the dice if that agency will bless you with waived fees. Another way agencies have added "cost" to the requesting practice is through complicated and lengthy forms that are mailed to the local agency (and some agencies, I will offer, absolutely will NOT let you just walk in and hand over a form ABC-123, and require it to be mailed with a postmark). At least, complicated for the individual making the request. These forms though I think do a very good job of helping records divisions enumerate the type of requests that come in, the volume at which they are received and provides an excellent catalog for the types of data most commonly requested by the public to make searching and disseminating the requested records more expedient for clerks and court reporters. But I absolutely agree, additional policy crafting is necessary to answer some key questions: 1) What should be released and how 2) What is the appropriate mechanism for making a request and what systems of work are engaged by jurisdictions in issuing a release 3) What are the conditions for a legally appropriate and publicly-interested release I think this is as true for 911 calls as it is querying a comptroller for city budget items.