Request By:
Thomas L. Grissom
Acting Director
Division of Water
Bureau of Environmental Protection
Department for Natural Resources
and Environmental Protection
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Carl T. Miller, Jr., Assistant Attorney General
Mr. Karl S. Forester, attorney for Mr. Don Parsons, has appealed to the Attorney General under KRS 61.880 your denial of inspection of certain records pertaining to Construction Permit No. 2200. By letter dated September 9, 1980, we requested that you forward a copy of the records to the Attorney General for our inspection before giving an opinion on the appeal. You have complied with our request and we received a copy of the records in question on September 17, 1980.
OPINION OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
We have examined the style and the contents of the records of which inspection was denied and have found that in each case the records are intra-office memoranda in which various employees of the Division of Water Resources reported finding of their inspection and expressed opinions and made recommendations concerning Construction Permit No. 2200. It is, therefore, our opinion that the records in question are exempt from the mandatory requirement of public inspection by KRS 61.878(1)(h), which reads as follows:
"Preliminary recommendations and preliminary memoranda in which opinions are expressed or policies formulated or recommended."
We conclude that the Division of Water Resources acted in accordance with the Kentucky Open Records Law, KRS 61.870 to 61.884, in denying inspection of the records in question.
We are sending a copy of this opinion to the requester, who has the right, under KRS 61.880(5), to institute proceedings in the circuit court for injunctive or declaratory relief.