Request By:
Ms. Christina Heavrin
Legal Counsel
Louisville and Jefferson County
Metropolitan Sewer District
400 South Sixth Street
Louisville, KY 40202
Opinion
Opinion By: Frederic J. Cowan, Attorney General; David R. Vandeventer, Assistant Attorney General
Mr. Kriebel has, by letter of February 3, 1989, appealed your January 24, 1989 denial of an Open Records Act request seeking copies of certain maps relating to the waterfront development project area in downtown Louisville. As I understand the request, Mr. Kriebel indicates that MSD has made available to certain members of the public similar maps by way of correspondence dated February 8, 1988 and September 21, 1987. Additionally, he requests a determination as to whether or not maps of this type are eligible for exemption as preliminary records. In light of the determination set out below it should not be necessary to reach that question. For general information, however, I would note a number of opinions of this office suggest that in analogous situations such notes may be exempt depending on the character of the record in question.
In reply to the appeal in question, attached please find OAG 82-394 addressed to the Executive Director of the Kentucky Board of Nursing Education which points out that "if a record is made available to one member of the public for one purpose, it must be made available to the public generally for any purpose" (p. 3) and further that "it is the content of the record itself which makes it either mandatorily accessible to public inspection and copying or exempt from the mandatory requirement" (p. 3). The thrust of this analysis obviously is that if the materials were considered sufficiently final to be released to other members of the public for other uses, by definition they must be made available to Mr. Kriebel. Consistent with OAG 82-394 and the presumption in the Kentucky Open Records Act, materials which have been made available to other members of the public must be made available pursuant to request.
As required by statute a copy of this opinion is being sent to the appealing party, Mr. Keith W. Kriebel. Either of you may have rights pursuant to KRS 61.880 to appeal regarding this opinion.