Opinion
Opinion By: Andy Beshear,Attorney General;Amye L. Bensenhaver,Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Decision
Lawrence Trageser appeals the City of Taylorsville's denial of his January 14, 2016, request for:
all records reflecting police reports created by the City of Taylorsville Police Department, involving the address of 290 Sycamore Drive, Taylorsville, KY. 40071. This request should include but is not limited to an incident report dated on 9/13/2013, so documented at 14:55:03.
The city denied Mr. Trageser's request on January 20, 2016, advising him that he "appear[ed] to be requesting the same record [he] requested in [his] open records request dated November 17, 2013...." Continuing, the city asserted that the "only record" of which it was aware concerning an incident at that location during that time frame was the JC-3 report released to Mr. Trageser following his appeal to the Attorney General of the city's denial of his November 17 request. 1 Because the city believed the request duplicated an earlier request, the city denied it as unreasonably burdensome.
On January 7, 2016, Mr. Trageser obtained copies of two CAD 2 reports from the Kentucky State Police that related to "290 Sycamore Drive, Taylorsville, KY on 9/12/13 or 9/13/13." The first report confirmed that at 11:15 p.m. on September 12, 2013, Officers Todd Walls and Daniel Wills responded to a complaint at the address, issued a JC-3, and departed at 1:14 a.m. 3 The second CAD report confirmed that Chief Toby Lewis made a second call to this address at 2:55 a.m. on September 13, 2013, that the incident did "not meet [the] criteria for JC3," and that Chief Lewis departed at 2:58 a.m. KSP was unable to provide "much of what [Mr. Trageser] requested as KSP didn't respond to the incident(s) [and] as the Taylorsville Police Department was the department [that] responded. " 4 Based on this information, Mr. Trageser submitted his January 14, 2016, request to the City of Taylorsville that expressly included "an incident report dated on 9/13/2013, so documented at 14:55:03" and all other reports relating to the address but not confined to this date.
Following receipt of notification of Mr. Trageser's appeal from its denial of his January 14, 2016, request, the city advised that it "has no other police records pertaining to an incident occurring at 290 Sycamore Drive, Taylorsville, Kentucky, on 9/12/2013 or 9/13/2013." The city did not address his request for all reports involving 290 Sycamore Drive.
In 08-ORD-173 the Office of the Attorney General determined that a local agency violated KRS 61.880(1) when it failed to respond to each part of a multi-part open records request. A copy of that decision is attached and its reasoning relied upon in full. Here, as in 08-ORD-173, we find that the City of Taylorsville violated KRS 61.880(1) by failing to respond to Mr. Trageser's request, in its entirety, and that "it will continue to be in violation of this statute until it notifies him, in writing, that he can access these records or that no responsive records exist." 08-ORD-173, p. 2. This includes all Taylorsville Police Department reports relating to 290 Sycamore Drive, without reference to a particular date, as well as reports generated as a result of its second call to that address on September 13, 2013.
Either party may appeal this decision 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 14-ORD-038.
2 Computer-aided Dispatch.
3 The JC-3 referenced in this CAD report was the JC-3 released by the City of Taylorsville to Mr. Trageser following his November 17, 2013, request and subsequent appeal. See note 1, above.
4 KSP's January 7, 2016, response to Mr. Trageser's January 4, 2016, open records request.