Opinion
Opinion By: Jack Conway, Attorney General; Amye L. Bensenhaver, Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Decision
This matter having been presented to the Attorney General in an open records appeal, and the Attorney General being sufficiently advised, we find that Kentucky State Reformatory did not violate provisions of the Open Records Act in the disposition of Marvin Phipps' April 9, 2010, letter to Kathleen Colebank, Corrections Program Administrator, Sexual Offender Treatment Program Supervisor at KSR, in which he propounded a series of questions to which he demanded answers. On April 15, Ms. Colebank, who does not serve as KSR's offender records custodian, forwarded Mr. Phipps' request to Mark Abelove, who occupies that position. 1 Mr. Abelove responded by letter dated April 15 advising Mr. Phipps that the Open Records Act "does not require a public agency to compile information or answer questions, but only to produce documents which are responsive to a request." In support, Mr. Abelove cited KRS 61.872(1), declaring that "[a]ll public records shall be open for inspection by any person, except as otherwise provided by KRS 61.870 to 61.884 . . .," and OAG 92-9. 2 Although we cannot confirm the relevance of the latter open records decision to the question presented in the instant appeal, we wholly concur with KSR in the view that the Open Records Act does not obligate public agencies to provide answers to questions submitted under the guise of a records request. In this regard, 02-ORD-49 is dispositive of the issue on appeal. A copy of that decision is attached hereto and incorporated by reference.
An individual identified as Marvin Phipps has submitted no less than ten open records appeals to the Office of the Attorney General. Assuming the Marvin Phipps who submitted this appeal to be the same Marvin Phipps who submitted ten previous requests and appeals, we are confident that he is sufficiently familiar with the Open Records Act to avoid future mistakes of this nature. We find no error in KSR's disposition of his most recent correspondence.
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.
Marvin W. Phipps, # 176844Kathleen D. Colebank, M.Ed.Marc AbeloveStafford Easterling
Footnotes
Footnotes
1 Although the delay in KSR's response to Mr. Phipps' request was negligible, we encourage the facility to take appropriate measures, including educating its employees on the fundamentals of the Open Records Act, to insure timely processing of future requests.
2 OAG 92-9 is an advisory opinion addressing residency requirements for assistant county attorneys collecting child support. The proper citation appears to be OAG 92-91.
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