Opinion
Opinion By: Daniel Cameron, Attorney General; Matthew Ray, Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Decision
On August 20, 2021, Lynette Warner ("Appellant") sent an email to the Board Chair in which she invoked the Act and sought "to obtain the date" on which the Board "voted to amend the School Opening Plan 2021-2022 to include [that] masks be worn by students and staff and the times" that the masks were required to be worn. Having received no response, on August 31, 2021 this appeal followed.
When a public agency receives a request under the Act, it must "determine within five (5) [business] days . . . after the receipt of any such request whether to comply with the request and shall notify in writing the person making the request, within the five (5) day period, of its decision." KRS 61.880(1). The Board did not respond to the Appellant's request until September 8, 2021, after the appeal was initiated. On appeal, the Board claims that, due to a technical error in syncing the Board Chair's electronic devices, she did not see the Appellant's email on her phone. The Board therefore argues that it never received the Appellant's request and that she should have submitted her request to the Board's records custodian instead of the Chair. 1Although the Board claims that its Chair looked at the wrong device, and therefore did not see the request, it has not established that the Board Chair did not receive the email. Therefore, the Board violated the Act when it did not respond to the Appellant's request within five business days. 2
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 shall be notified of any action in circuit court but shall not be named as a party in that action or in any subsequent proceedings.
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