Request By:
Mr. Jack Blanton
Vice Chancellor for Administration and Official Records Custodian
Unversity of Kentucky
110 Administration Building
Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0032
Opinion
Opinion By: Frederic J. Cowan, Attorney General; Grant Winston, Assistant Attorney General
Mr. Bob Hensley of WTVQ in Lexington has appealed to this office your refusal to honor his request for the addresses of all members of the University of Kentucky Alumni Association (UKAA), which he requested by letter of 16 February 1990.
Factual Background
Mr. Bob Hensley of WTVQ, Lexington, by letter of 16 February 1990, requested Mr. Jack C. Blanton, Official Records Custodian of the University of Kentucky, to provide "a list of names and addresses of all members of the University of Kentucky Alumni Association," pursuant to Kentucky's Open Records Law, KRS 61.870 et seq . Mr. Blanton responded by letter on 21 February 1990, refusing to provide the addresses of the members, invoking KRS 61.878(1)(a) which excludes from mandatory disclosure "information of a personal nature where the public disclosure thereof would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."
Mr. Hensley appealed to this office for an opinion on the legality of the refusal to divulge the addresses.
Opinion of the Attorney General
This office has previously interpreted KRS 61.878(1)(a) in relation to the divulgence of home addresses of licensees, state employes, and members of a voluntary organization that receives at least 25% of its funding from public sources.
This office decided that licensing boards should not give licensees' home addresses unless their work addresses were not on record. See: OAGs 82-394, 82-524. While recognizing the personal nature of a home address, we also recognized that the Commonwealth's licensure process is to protect the public. Thus, it was the opinion of this office that the interest of the public prevails and even a licensee's home address is a proper subject of disclosure in the absence of a work address.
We have also stated that the home addresses of state employes come within the exclusion of KRS 61.878(1)(a), but that information such as name, salary, and work station does not. OAG 76-717.
Yet the members of the UKAA, as such, are neither state employes nor state licensees. They much more closely resemble members of a voluntary organization receiving at least 25% of its funding from state or local funds. We have already opined that the home addresses of those members are not required to be divulged by KRS 61.878(1)(a). OAG 80-432. Thus, the official custodian's refusal to release addresses of the UKAA members' names was within the law. However, consistent with prior opinions of this office, we believe that a much lesser degree of personal privacy inheres in a work address. It is the opinion of the Attorney General that the UKAA members' home addresses do fall under the exemptive language of KRS 61.878(1)(a), but that their work addresses do not. Any record of those was improperly withheld, except where a member's work address and home address are one and the same, in which case, the address should be deemed the member's home address for the purpose of this opinion.
As required by statute, a copy of this opinion is being sent to Mr. Bob Hensley who requested it. Pursuant to KRS 61.880(5), either or both of the parties may appeal this opinion to the appropriate circuit court.