Request By:
John T. Mandt, Esq.
203 West Columbia Street
P.O. Box 25
Somerset, Kentucky 42501
Opinion
Opinion By: Frederic J. Cowan, Attorney General; Thomas R. Emerson, Assistant Attorney General
On behalf of a reporter for her client-newspaper, The Courier-Journal , Kimberly K. Greene, Esq., has appealed to the Attorney General, pursuant to KRS 61.880, your denial of reporter Kristen Haukebo's request to inspect various records of the Pulaski County Solid Waste Board.
In a letter to you, dated November 30, 1990, Ms. Haukebo requested in part as follows:
I would like to examine records of the Pulaski County Solid Waste Board, also referred to as the county's '109 Board,' including but not limited to: any and all records of payments made by the board, including payments to members, past and present, dating back to the board's formation in 1982; any and all records of reports made by the board or any of its members regarding violations or suspected violations at the Pulaski landfill or by past or present owners, operators or customers; any financial records or reports submitted to the board by owners of the landfill to demonstrate compliance with the requirement that it pay the board a percentage of its funds; any and all records of payments made to the board since its formation; and any and all audits of the board's finances.
You responded to Ms. Haukebo in a letter dated December 3, 1990, and advised her as follows:
This is in reply to your open records request delivered to me on Friday, November 30, 1990. Your request states that you 'would like to examine records of the Pulaski County Solid Waste Board . . . including but not limited to: . . . .' This would, of course, include every single piece of paper, record, or document that the Board has.
I believe that the request made is too broad and too general and the request is denied. KRS 61.872(5), OAG 89-8, OAG 86-65, OAG 84-342, OAG 76-375.
In her letter of appeal to this office, Ms. Greene maintains that you have not acted consistently with the provisions of KRS 61.870 to KRS 61.884 in your blanket denial of the reporter's specific requests for records and that you should provide her with access to those records immediately.
OPINION OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
While the reporter's letter requesting access to documents of the Board does contain the phrase "including but not limited to," she then proceeds to list several specific categories of documents in which she is interested. She is, in effect, not requesting every record of the board. She is, however, requesting access to a large volume of material and it is possible that some of the records may be withheld pursuant to statutorily authorized exceptions and some of the records simply may not exist.
In OAG 89-81, copy enclosed, at page four, this office noted that, while the request letter covered a broad range of records, it did describe, with reasonable particularity, categories of documents the person wanted to inspect. We concluded that the public agency must make a good faith effort to make available for inspection those records that conform to the request.
While this office has recognized that blanket requests for information and documents need not be honored (OAG 89-61), we have also said that blanket denials of all records in a given class or category may be improper without considering the specific documents involved (OAG 89-20). The reporter has requested access to a great deal of information and some of it is clearly subject to public inspection. For example, this office has consistently concluded, as indicated by OAG 80-454, copy enclosed, that any records of bills paid, payroll check stubs or cancelled checks, and all other records show funds received and disbursed are public records.
KRS 61.880(1) sets forth the duties of a public agency relative to its response to a request to inspect documents. After the public agency receives a request to inspect documents which is sufficiently specific to enable the agency to identify and locate the documents, the public agency must respond in writing to the requesting party. The agency must list the documents it is withholding from inspection, the exception to inspection relied upon in withholding the document and how that exception applies to the document withheld from inspection.
If a public agency intends to rely upon KRS 61.872(5), that producing the records places an unreasonable burden upon the agency or that the requester intends to disrupt other essential agency functions, the refusal of the agency to produce documents for these reasons must be sustained by clear and convincing evidence. The public agency in this particular situation has not met that burden.
It is, therefore, the opinion of the Attorney General that the public agency's blanket denial of the request for access to documents was improper. The requesting party has described the various categories of documents to which she seeks access with sufficient specificity to require the public agency to respond in a good faith manner to those requests by categories pursuant to KRS 61.880(1). Documents withheld from inspection or unavailable should be identified and the specific reasons for withholding any documents should be stated in writing.
As required by statute, a copy of this opinion is being mailed to the attorney for the requesting party, Kimberly K. Greene, Esq. The public agency has the right to challenge this opinion in the appropriate circuit court pursuant to KRS 61.880(5) and KRS 61.882.