Agenda Packets - 2023/08/07 (2) - Laserfiche WebLink

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Item 2 Page 2 of 3 4. Can council choose to set 300 (or some number) for residents and use 100 for business related/or potential lawsuit related (of course there are challenges of figuring out what the use is)? a. Can we ask the purpose — the why? The City cannot require disclosure of the identity of the requestor or state a reason for to justify a request. The City maybe could differentiate based on the data itself but not the requestor. For example, the law allows additional fees to be charged for data that has commercial value or data that has been enhanced by the City at the request of the requestor. Establishing a policy where the City is differentiating between residents and nonresidents or between different data use purposes should not be done. 5. Are we required to provide an estimate (we probably would provide a range)? No, but doing so is a good idea prior to actually making the copies so the city does not go through the work of redacting and making copies and then have the requestor refuse to pay. The work around for a requestor is always just to come in and view the data and then request up to 100 (or the page limit) and avoid paying the fees. 6. We know the law states "reasonable" with respect to time, want to confirm that "term" includes keeping the requestor updated on the progress — example Fred was on vacation for two weeks and only Fred can explore his email (effectively) which constitutes the majority of the data — as do most of our requests, its almost always emails. There is no requirement that the City keep the requestor updated on progress, but again, this is probably a good idea to avoid any claim that the city is not responding in an "appropriate and prompt" manner (Minn. Stat. 13.02, subd. 2(a)) and when a request for copies is made then the response time must be "as soon as reasonably possible." However, this is more of a policy decision (with legal implications). The "reasonable" standard is subjective to the scope of the request and could also be impacted by things like employee availability, but again, the response time must be "prompt and appropriate." Discussion: Council needs to balance the democratic values of transparency and sharing of public data with imposition to staff time and fiscal consequence that could benefit a few at the expense of many. The legislature provides guidance on this balance, with the 100 page threshold which includes emailing or the making of copies as the staff time to assemble and email is the same as assembling and copying. Staff would endeavor to provide estimates for those exceeding the 100 pages (or some other threshold council could establish) prior to fulfilling that request. An additional issue would be obtaining payment prior to fulfilling the request as we had a recent request that was fulfilled, only to have the requestor not come to pick it up. The issue of large data requests came up at a recent City Manager/Administrator professional meeting in which nearly all those present they impose a fee/charge for large data requests. The Mounds View Vision A Thriving Desirable Community