EVERETT — Some big changes are coming to how the city of Everett handles public records requests.
Last week, the City Council adopted a new policy that governs how the city will respond to the requests under state law.
The city staff also is developing a dedicated web page and plans to install back-end software to better manage the records-request process.
The new policy was created to help the city get hold of an increasing number of demands for documents, some of which are also broader in scope.
Everett received 611 records requests in 2014 and 627 in 2015, not counting requests to the police department, city spokeswoman Meghan Pembroke wrote in an email.
The city also has received 585 requests this year, which would be on track to reach more than 800 for all of 2016, she said.
The last substantial changes to the city’s policy were made in 1999, and parts of the existing policies date from the 1970s and 1980s.
“Since that time, and particularly over the last couple of years, managing compliance has become increasingly complex due to the enormous growth in both scope and volume of requests,” city Treasurer Susy Haugen told the council recently.
The new policy is a substantial expansion on much of the content of the city’s existing policies.
Because the council’s resolution doesn’t change the city’s code, it was passed Wednesday without a public hearing that usually accompanies formal legislation.
The policy makes a number of key changes. One is a new schedule of fees, starting at a basic 15 cents per photocopied black-and-white page, that takes into account whether oversized or color copies are required, scans of printed pages, whether a physical CD or DVD is burned, mailing costs, or time to upload large files.
Another new section allows a request to be considered abandoned if the requester does not pick up or make arrangements to access the requested documents within 30 days after the records become available.
“We’ve had 11 requests abandoned so far this year,” Pembroke said.
That also applies to large record disclosures that are released in installments: If the first installment isn’t claimed, the staff may suspend work on subsequent installments.
Other sections of the policy allow city staff to prioritize the requests if a single person submits multiple requests, or a single party makes additional requests while previous requests are still open.
“Staff is not required to work on an additional request until the initial requests are completed and closed,” the new policy reads. It also places the burden on the requester to ask the staff to prioritize the requests in an order other than first-come, first-served.
That action also can help separate out so-called “abusive” requests, which appear to be intended to harass officials ordisrupt the functioning of government.
State law makes no distinction between requests, nor does it consider the intent of the filer or otherwise allow local governments to pick and choose how to respond to each individual request.
Yet many government officials have lamented the increasing amount of time and money spent on requests that seem designed to create problems rather than serve the public.
The Legislature is expected to debate the issue in the 2017 session.
For example, in November 2014, an anonymous man requested every single record maintained by the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office going back 238 years. In another case, Kevin Hulten, the aide to former county Executive Aaron Reardon, used pseudonyms to request large amounts of information on his boss’ political rivals that required extensive staff time to process.
The new policy also asks the requester to provide a name, address and method of contact, although it’s not clear if it would weed out requests from someone determined to remain anonymous.
Pembroke said that policy is aimed more toward giving staff the ability to refine the requests so that they are not overly broad, and thus not require an excess of staff time to fulfill.
The City Council passed the new policy unanimously Wednesday without significant comment.
Most of the debate the previous week focused on practical considerations with the new software, although Councilman Paul Roberts spoke to the challenges of complying with the intent of the law in the face of increasing requests even as the city worked to make more documents available.
“In some cases we’ve argued that a disclosure isn’t appropriate, and have been fined for making that argument,” he said. “Those are extraordinary cases.”
Haugen also emphasized that the city’s web site will make many more documents readily available on the web as a matter of course.
“Really, the cheapest easiest way is to just make the stuff available and avoid the requests and process altogether,” Roberts said.
Chris Winters: 425-374-4165; cwinters@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @Chris_At_Herald.
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