Courier Journal columnist Joe Gerth recounts his personal experience dealing with Transportation Cabinet officials in eminent domain proceedings.

"The transportation cabinet's policy is to not release any appraisals until all property on a project has been purchased — a policy designed to keep property owners in the dark about changing estimates of the damage to their neighbors' homes.

"That would tend to keep the state's costs down, but would work against both state and federal law that require the government pay fair market value for property they condemn."

The "policy" is codified in an exception to the open records law. KRS 61.878(1)(f) authorizes nondisclosure of:

"The contents of real estate appraisals, engineering or feasibility estimates and evaluations made by or for a public agency relative to acquisition of property, until such time as all of the property has been acquired. The law of eminent domain shall not be affected by this provision."

https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/statute.aspx?id=51393

The exception has been disputed in a number of past open records appeals.

"The purpose of this exemption," the attorney general has recognized for decades, "is to allow a governmental agency to negotiate with individual landowners, in the acquisition of large tracts of land, without having others similarly situated knowing the terms and conditions of any specific offer, and thereby gaining an unfair negotiating advantage."

The exemption "has been interpreted to mean that when the necessary acquisitions for a project are within a relatively compact area and the limits of the project are reasonably drawn, it is the legislative intent that appraisals and engineering or feasibility estimates on the property should not be made available for inspection until such time as all of the parcels of land owned by various owners have been acquired."

https://ag.ky.gov/Priorities/Government-Transparency/orom/2005/05ORD043…

Gerth is right:

"The system is set up to benefit the state. It relies on secrecy to keep property owners in the dark, fear of losing court battles and sheer inability to pay lawyers, and a lack of knowledge on the part of homeowners to understand the true value of their property."