Request By:
Mr. Roger Cole
Commissioner
Department of Administrative Services
Transportation Cabinet
State Office Building
Frankfort, Kentucky 40622
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; Thomas R. Emerson, Assistant Attorney General
Mr. Rickey Fields has appealed to the Attorney General pursuant to KRS 61.880 your partial denial of his request to inspect and copy certain records in your custody. Mr. Fields had requested to inspect and copy three groups of documents and, since he was given access to one of them, this appeal pertains to the following two groups of documents described as follows by Mr. Fields in his letter to you dated August 15, 1986:
"1) A title of ownership to St. Rt. 319, Peter Branch of McCarr, Pike County, Kentucky.
"2) Documents showing two separate dates on which we the people believe the Federal Government appropriated money to pave St. Rt. 319."
In your letter to Mr. Fields, dated August 28, 1986, you replied to his first request as follows:
"From our preliminary search, the Transportation Cabinet cannot locate any title of ownership to State Route 319, Peter Fork of McCarr, Pike County, Kentucky. However, the Highway Department has the responsibility for State maintenance of State Route 319, Peter Fork of McCarr, Pike County, Kentucky."
You responded to the second request as follows: "The above constitutes a vague blanket request for documents. A request to inspect records must be specific, OAG 84-342; OAG 85-197; OAG 84-364."
The undersigned Assistant Attorney General talked with you by telephone on September 29, 1986, and you reiterated that your office could not locate the title of ownership to the road in question. You further stated, in regard to the second request, that it was vague and imprecise. The requesting party not only did not know what year or years the documents in question had been prepared and received but he was not sure if such documents even existed. To attempt to locate this kind of material on the basis of the few and non-specific facts furnished would require the expenditure by the Transportation Cabinet of vasts amounts of time and effort as the records and documents that would have to be examined are numerous.
OPINION OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
In response to the requesting party's request for a copy of the title of ownership to a particular road, you replied that you could not locate such a document. From the standpoint of the Open Records Law and common sense, you cannot make available that which you do not have. This office has no reason to doubt that you made a good faith effort to locate the document in question and simply could not find it. Therefore, your response to this particular request was not inconsistent with the provisions of the Kentucky Open Records Act (KRS 61.870 to KRS 61.884). See OAG 83-111, copy enclosed.
You responded to the request for two separate dates on which Mr. Fields believed the federal government appropriated money to pave a particular road by stating that the request was vague. This office has stated that a request must be specific enough so that a public agency can identify and locate the document in question. The requesting party must be able to describe the record he seeks to inspect with a certain specificity. See OAG 84-342, copy enclosed, at page two. Furthermore, in OAG 76-375, copy enclosed, we said in part that blanket requests for information on a particular subject without specifying certain documents need not be honored.
The Open Records Act provides in part that all public records, with certain exceptions, shall be open for public inspection (KRS 61.872). While persons will obviously acquire information from these records, the primary purpose of the Act is making public records available for public inspection rather than furnishing information to the public. Thus any person who seeks to inspect and copy public records will have to identify the records with sufficient clarity to enable the public agency to locate and make available those records.
It is, therefore, the opinion of the Attorney General that the public agency's actions in not making public records available for public inspection on the grounds that documents could not be found and that the request for other records was vague and imprecise were proper responses and actions under the terms and provisions of the Open Records Act.
As required by statute a copy of this opinion is being sent to the requesting party, Mr. Rickey Fields, who has the right to challenge it in the appropriate circuit court pursuant to KRS 61.880(5).