But Did You Really Want these "Public Records?" Really?

If you make a request but then totally and completely ignore staff's follow on communications--it begs the question:  Did you really even want these records, are are you just wasting our time?

Unlike other members of the Board who willfully, spitefully withhold bonafide public records from citizens who make requests for such records (and face ZERO consequences for these transgressions)---I take the Florida Public Records Act seriously and have ALWAYS worked to quickly, diligently, and efficiently answer such requests made of me and my office.

If they are easily accessible records requested--- not requiring legal review--I have often turned such requests around in one day.

Other such requests have required significant effort and have taken as long as 30 days.

Some requests require significant staff support, research, and time to be completed--necessitating monetary payments to the county for effort(s) necessary to comply.   I have still always fulfilled such requests in a timely manner--typiclaly within 30 days--once the appropriate deposit(s) were made in each such instance. 

Examples of this include voluminous, expansive requests made of my office from the fire union a few years back and one from ECSO in 2018.  These took time, and one of the two required a deposit to be made to cover the staff time necessary to retrieve, reproduce, and print the records.  Upon completion, the one for ECSO needed two banker's boxes to hold all the paper!

It is entirely appropriate (and legal) to have a public records requestor pay a deposit to cover the costs associated with the production of a voluminous public records request--this is absolutely allowed for and provided in statutes and in county ordinances.

Heck, a coupe of years back when we, the county, made a public records request of our own design consultant DPZ for their text messages and emails related to OLF-8---they charged the project (ultimately paid by NFCU) over $5 grand for this request.   Yes, these requests can be expensive and time consuming.

So recently I had a very voluminous request made of me, and thereupon I immediately began the laborious process of locating the records requested (covering a 6-year period)--to include harvesting some information from old iPhones and havested data files on stick drives.  I quickly spent nearly 4 hours just getting  some of the basic requested information----before I even started the daunting and excruitiatingly meticulous task of going through all of the records to ascertain which ones were bonafide records, which would require redaction, and which were not public records.

Meanwhile, I requested that the county attorney's staff make a request for a small and appropriate deposit from the requestor--as I believed the ultimate completion of the request made of me will take many more hours of time to complete.

Multiple emails, hard copy letters, and even phone calls from the legal office to this individual have now been ignored.

No deposit has been made.  Crickets.

So now, the work to gather what was initially requested has been suspended.  

If he wants the records, fine, but if he doesn't--that's fine too.   But he ought not wast valuable staff time making huge requests if the records he requested are not really wanted.  Otherwise, he's just wasting people's time.  Or, he's still trying to save up enough money to pay the small deposit required to fulfill the request?  Who knows, it is weird.

Earlier this week, I again queried legal staff about this particular request and received the below response before I suspended my efforts on this request.....

"Good Morning,

There has been no payment or response to the PRR 2022-286. Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to assist with this PRR.

 Best,

Danielle Cooper  Citizens Services Coordinator"