Counting down to midnight when SB 230 — sponsored by Senator Wil Schroder (R-Wilder) — will take effect and with it the long overdue recognition that public agencies must honor emailed open records requests.

Many state and local agencies welcome — indeed encourage — emailed requests.

But some public agencies remain mired in the past and a narrow reading of a statute — KRS 61.872(2) — that was last amended in 1994 to permit transmission of open records requests by a then radical new technology, facsimile.

Whatever their reasons for refusing emailed requests, effective June 27 these agencies no longer have a choice.

Email joins the ranks of US Mail, hand-delivery, and facsimile as a legally permissible mode of transmitting open records requests.

The last time the open records law was amended to promote public access was 2005. That year, Representative Derek Graham (D-Frankfort) secured passage of a bill mandating regular distribution of written materials intended to educate university, school, city, and county officials about the open records and meetings laws.

Compliance has been spotty, and the results less than spectacular, but Graham had the right idea.

So did Schroder.

His amendment to KRS 61.872(2) — which is less than a model of clarity — states that an agency's official custodian of records may require:

"(a) Written application, signed by the applicant and with his name printed legibly on the application, describing the records to be inspected. The WRITTEN application shall be hand-delivered, mailed, or sent vis facsimile to the public agency;

(b) FACSIMILE TRANSMISSION OF THE WRITTEN APPLICATION DESCRIBED IN PARAGRAPH (a) OF THIS SUBSECTION; OR

(c) E-MAIL OF THE APPLICATION IN PARAGRAPH (a) OF THIS SUBSECTION."

(Changes to the statute are denoted in all CAPS.)

Setting aside the interpretational challenges this language may pose, Schroder's stated purpose was to clarify the emailed records requests must be honored.

While this could have been accomplished by simply adding the word "emailed" to the list of acceptable methods of transmitting the request (i.e., "hand-delivered, mailed, EMAILED, or sent via facsimile"), we'll take Sen. Schroder at his word.

And we thank him for what is the greatest (and only) improvement to the open records law in almost 15 years.