Opinion
Opinion By: Gregory D. Stumbo, Attorney General; Amye L. Bensenhaver, Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Decision
The question presented in this appeal is whether the City of Dayton violated the Open Records Act in the disposition of a series of requests submitted by River Cities Beacon reporter Valerie McQueen on September 23, 2004. Specifically, Ms. McQueen requested access to:
1. Any police report pertaining to [Ms. McQueen], The River Cities Beacon, or any of its staff;
2. The letter that [Mayor] Kenneth Rankle read into the minutes of the City Council Meeting on Tuesday;
3. Any . . . documents [relating to] Urban Myth Skate Shop and Aaron Lyle [including] the videotaped theft and confession [that] were turned over to the police at the time of the theft report[.]
Having received no response to her requests, Ms. McQueen initiated this appeal by letter dated October 13, 2004, and received on October 18, 2004, expressing her confidence in the existence of these records. Ms. McQueen explained:
[With reference to request one,] we were informed by Sgt. [Raleigh] Burnett that Carla Woods has filed "several reports" involving . . . The River Cities Beacon [, and] that Sgt. Barnett was the investigating officer.
[With reference to request two,] Mayor [Kenneth] Rankle read the letter that I am looking for into the record of an open council meeting . . . in reference to an ethics investigation involving drug tests of city employees.
[With reference to request three, involving] a report that I made on a theft from my store and a videotape of that theft [,] . . . Sgt. Barnett took the report and store security video tape [but c]harges were never filed against the thief and Sgt. Barnett claims that it was "lost in the shuffle."
In closing, Ms. McQueen reasserted her right "to inspect the requested documents."
Appended to Ms. McQueen's letter of appeal to this office was a second letter of the same date, also addressed to this office, which she styled "an official complaint into practices in Dayton, Kentucky involving open records." In that letter, she questioned the City's failure to produce records in a timely fashion, the City's insistence that open records requesters utilize its preprinted form, and the City's refusal to provide The River Cities Beacon with copies of its "press releases" while freely releasing them to a competing newspaper. She also questioned the validity of a series of invoices released in response to an earlier request, a copy of which was not enclosed, and noted that much of the information contained in the invoices was illegible. Although she indicated that copies of the invoices were enclosed, they were not included in the materials received by this office.
Having reviewed the record on appeal, we find that the City's disposition of Ms. McQueen's requests was procedurally and substantively deficient. We do not address the issues raised in Ms. McQueen's "official open records complaint" because those issues were not presented to this office in accordance with KRS 61.880(2)(a) and are therefore not ripe for review. Instead, we address those issues raised in her letter of appeal for which the statutorily required documentation was submitted. 1
In correspondence directed to this office following commencement of Ms. McQueen's appeal, Dayton City Attorney John C. Fischer responded to the issues raised. With reference to requests directed to Chief Mark Brown for police reports pertaining to Ms. McQueen, The River Cities Beacon, or any of its staff, and documents relating to Urban Myth Skate Shop and Aaron Lyle, including the videotaped theft and confession that were turned over to the police, Mr. Fischer explained:
The written request was directed to Chief Brown of the Dayton Police department. He is not the custodian of city records. He was neither required to produce the reports nor to make answer within three (3) days stating when and where a copy of the record could be obtained or that the record did not exist.
Nevertheless, he did attempt to make such records available. He requested Sgt. Barnett to provide the records. Unfortunately, as Chief Brown and Sgt. Barnett are not custodians of city records familiar with open records requirement, they did not notify the requester when and where to obtain the records within three (3) days.
The only experience Sgt. Barnett had with the procedure was in [responding to Ms. McQueen's request for police reports relating to an incident at Urban Myth Skate Shop]. In that case, he had provided the record to Ms. McQueen or her employee who had come to the police office to retrieve same. Because of this experience, he assumed incorrectly that Ms. McQueen or her employee would come to the police office to retrieve the record. He made copies of the records and has kept same at the office awaiting someone from Ms. McQueen's office to arrive. The records will be delivered to Ms. McQueen's office immediately.
If Ms. McQueen had directed her request to the correct custodian of records (City Clerk) , Ms. McQueen would have been notified within three (3) days--actually much sooner--that the records could be retrieved at the city offices.
Mr. Fischer took a similar position in responding to Ms. McQueen's request for the letter Mayor Rankle read into the minutes of the City Council meeting on Tuesday, September 21, 2004. He advised:
The written request was directed to the Mayor. He is not the custodian of any city records.
The Mayor read a statement during city council meeting. The document from which he read was never filed with the City and is not a city record. Many citizens make statements from written notes to City Council at their meetings. They are not required to file the notes with the city. There is no such city record.
If the request had been directed to the custodian of records, the City Clerk who is knowledgeable about open records requirements, a notice would have been given to Ms. McQueen within three (3) days that no such record exists. But the custodian was unaware of the request.
The Mayor had no duty to answer the request. He is not the custodian of the record. In the same way that a private request to a citizen for a copy of the document he or she read from in making a statement at City Council meeting would not require a response within three (3) days, the Mayor was not required to respond.
We disagree with the City's interpretation of the procedural and substantive requirements of the Open Records Act. 2
To begin, a public agency has no authority to ignore a misdirected request. KRS 61.872(4) speaks directly to this issue, providing:
If the person to whom the application is directed does not have custody or control of the public record requested, that person shall notify the applicant and shall furnish the name and location of the official custodian of the agency's public records.
The fact that the Dayton City Clerk is the official custodian of public records maintained by the City did not relieve Chief Brown or Mayor Rankle of their statutory obligation to promptly so notify Ms. McQueen, in writing, and to furnish the name and location of the official custodian of the agency's public records. 3 We find no support in existing open records law for the proposition that a public official has no duty to make proper disposition of an open records request, even if that disposition consists of no more than advising the requester, in writing, that his or her request has been misdirected and identifying by name and address, the agency's official custodian. Alternatively, these officials might have discharged their statutory duty by immediately forwarding the misdirected request to the public agency's official custodian to insure a timely agency response. We find unpersuasive the City's argument that these omissions, including the failure to notify Ms. McQueen that the police reports, and accompanying records, she requested had been compiled and were available for inspection, 4 are mitigated by these officials' lack of familiarity with the Open Records Act. We urge the City to make reasonable efforts to insure that public officials and rank-in-file employees have sufficient knowledge of the Act to facilitate agency compliance with the Act. 5
We find equally unpersuasive the City's assertion that the statement read by the Mayor during the City Council meeting is not a "city record" because it "was never filed with the City," and the attempt to analogize the Mayor's statement to statements made by private citizens at Council meetings. By definition, the term pubic record includes "all books, papers, maps, photographs, cards, tapes, discs, diskettes, recordings, software, or other documentation regardless of physical form or characteristics, which are prepared, owned, used, in the possession of or retained by a public agency. " KRS 61.870(2) (emphasis added). Further, by definition, the term "public agency" extends to "[e]very state or local government officer[.]" KRS 61.870(1)(a). Under this line of reasoning, the Mayor is himself a public agency, and records which he prepares, owns, uses, possesses, or retains are public records for open records purposes. His status cannot be equated to that of a private citizen in this factual context. "In the end, it is the nature and purpose of the document, not the place where it is kept, that determines its status as a public record. " City of Louisville v. Brian Cullinan, No. 1998-CA-001237-MR and Cross Appeal No. 1998-CA-001305-MR (Ky. App. 1994). 6
In 04-ORD-123, a copy of which is enclosed, the Attorney General analyzed a similar question regarding the status of records not maintained in a city's files and concluded that the city's position that the requested records were not public records was legally unsupportable. Relying on the Court of Appeals' opinion in City of Louisville v. Cullinan, above, we reasoned that the individual in whose custody the records resided, there the city's attorney, "held [] the documents at the instance of and as custodian on the City's behalf . . . ." Id. at 4. We reach the same conclusion in the appeal now before us. Regardless of whether the requested record is characterized as a record of the Mayor as a public agency, or the city as a public agency, it is a public record that is governed by the Open Records Act. As in 04-ORD-123, we find no support for the proposition that the city has no control over its records, wherever that record is reposed. Unless the City can articulate a statutory basis for denial of Ms. McQueen's request, the requested written statement must be disclosed to her forthwith.
As for the remaining records identified in Ms. McQueen's requests, the City has advised that those records were delivered to her office on or about October 21, 2004. We trust that all records access issues relating to the three open records requests Ms. McQueen submitted to this office were resolved by disclosure of the records and therefore do not address these issues. 40 KAR 1:030 Section 6. 7
A party aggrieved by this decision may appeal it by initiating action in the appropriate circuit court pursuant to KRS 61.880(5) and KRS 61.882. Pursuant to KRS 61.880(3), the Attorney General should be notified of any action in circuit court, but should not be named as a party in that action or in any subsequent proceeding.
Footnotes
Footnotes
1 The River Cities Beacon may appeal the issue of timely access to a particular record by submitting to this office a copy of a written request directed to the City which was not honored within three business days of the City's receipt. The Beacon may appeal the City's requirement that requesters utilize its preprinted open records form by submitting to this office a copy of an open records request that the City refused to honor because it was not on the preprinted form. Finally, The Beacon may appeal the City's actions relative to "press releases" by submitting to this office a copy of an open records request for these records which the City denied. Until The Beacon does so, we are precluded from reviewing these issues by operation of 40 KAR 1:030 Section 1.
With reference to the validity of the invoices produced in response to an earlier request, which, as noted, was not attached to Ms. McQueen's letter of appeal, we cannot afford her the relief she seeks. As this office has observed on several occasions, questions relating to the verifiability, authenticity, or validity of records disclosed under the Open Records Act are not capable of resolution under the Open Records Act. See 02-ORD-89 (recipient of public records questioned quality and value of the information those records contained and Attorney General refused to consider this issue); 04-ORD-032 (recipient of public records questioned the degree of detail and "verifiability" of records produced in response to open records request and Attorney General characterized the question as one that did not arise under the Open Records Act) ; see also 04-OMD-182 (questions regarding authenticity of agency's meeting minutes not appropriate for review by Attorney General.)
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2 In her letter of appeal, Ms. McQueen identified a fourth request, directed to Police Sgt. Raleigh Barnett, that was effectively denied, to wit, a written police report that was "85% different than the original report." Although she indicated that a copy of the original report was attached, it was not included in the materials sent to this office. Nor was a copy of her request to Sgt. Barnett. Again, the Attorney General is foreclosed from considering this portion of her appeal by virtue of 40 KAR 1:030 Section 1, requiring submission to the Attorney General of a copy of the written request and a copy of the agency denial, if the agency provided a denial. We therefore do not consider this issue.
3 It is unclear whether the City of Dayton has adopted and posted, in a prominent location accessible to the public, rules and regulations governing access to city records per KRS 61.876(1), identifying by title and address the city's official custodian of records per KRS 61.876(1)(b). Had the City complied with this statutory requirement and thereby afforded Ms. McQueen an opportunity to inspect the notice prior to submitting her requests, those requests might have been properly directed to the city clerk and this confusion might have been avoided.
4 The City does not respond to Ms. McQueen's allegation that the videotaped theft and confession that were turned over to the police when the police report was filed were somehow "lost in the shuffle" and no longer available for inspection. It is hoped that upon closer review, these records were subsequently located and released to her.
5 A representative of this office regularly participates in the Orientation for New Police Chiefs conducted by the Department of Criminal Justice Training by presenting a two hour discussion relating to the duties of chiefs of police under the Open Records Act.
6 Although City of Louisville v. Brian Cullinan is an unpublished opinion that, in accordance with Rules of Civil Procedure (CR) 76.28(4)(c), cannot be cited or used as authority in any other case in any court of this state, it is indicative of the view the courts might adopt in a later published opinion that a public agency cannot frustrate access to public records by characterizing them as the Mayor's records and not city records.
7 40 KAR 1:030 Section 6 provides:
If the requested documents are made available to the complaining party after a complaint is made, the Attorney General shall decline to issue a decision in the matter.