CACHE - At the request of its insurance carrier, the City of Cache has updated its policies for handling requests for public records.
The Cache City Council voted 3-0 Tuesday to approve an amended version of the ordinance detailing the city’s policies governing openrecord requests, including a fee schedule. Councilman Flint Runyan was absent.
The Oklahoma Municipal Assurance Group, which is the city’s insurance carrier, asked officials to revise the existing ordinance as a defense against potential lawsuits, said Mayor Scott Brown.
“They are the ones requiring us to put this in an ordinance so we meet the standard,” he said. “If something does happen and we get sued, they’re going to take care of it.”
Requesting records Under the ordinance, people who request city-held records must fill out a form which may include enough information to allow the city to identify and locate the records. The form may include the person’s name and contact information, a description of the records being requested and the general time frame when the records were created. The request should include identifiable records, rather than general information, and specific search terms to help city officials identify the records.
If a request doesn’t meet those requirements, the city may ask the person seeking the records for clarification.
To assist with clarification, the city may provide the requester with general topics or a specific list of records related to the request.
Public records that are not exempt from disclosure will be made available for inspection during the city’s regular business hours, subject to reasonable procedures designed to protect the records’ integrity, organization and security.
The city may charge the following copying and reproduction fees for public records:
•Standard paper copies: 25 cents per page for records measuring 8 Vi inches by 14 inches or smaller.
•Certified copies: $1 per copied page unless a different fee is specifically established by state law.
•Larger documents: The city may charge the reasonable, direct cost of reproducing documents larger than 8 Vi
inches by 14 inches, provided that the fee is not otherwise prohibited or limited by applicable law.
The city may charge a search fee only when authorized by state law, according to the ordinance. That includes requests that are solely for a commercial purpose or that would clearly cause an excessive disruption of the city’s essential functions.
“When authorized, the city may charge a reasonable fee sufficient only to recover the city’s direct cost of locating, retrieving, and copying the requested records,” the ordinance said. “The city shall maintain documentation supporting any search or reproduction costs charged to the requester.”
The city may not charge a search fee when releasing records is in the public interest, according to the ordinance. Public-interest requests include requests from news organizations, scholars and authors.
The city may require advance payment of estimated fees when the cost exceeds $75 or the person seeking the records has outstanding fees from an earlier request. Officials shall provide a reasonable fee estimate before requiring advance payment, and any part of an advance payment that exceeds the actual cost of responding to the request will be returned to the requester.
The written fee schedule will be posted at City Hall and filed with the Comanche County clerk, according to the ordinance.