Request By:
[NO REQUESTBY IN ORIGINAL]
Opinion
Opinion By: A. B. Chandler III, Attorney General; Amye L. Bensenhaver, Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Decision
This is an appeal from the City of Olive Hill's response to Jeannie Burchett's March 7, 1997, request for "the names of all citzens [sic] in the City Limits of Olive Hill that vote in the city." On March 7, 1997, Mayor Jim Short advised Ms. Burchett that "this is not a list that is presently compiled and available." For the following reasons we conclude that the city's response was originally deficient, but that the deficiency was corrected in its March 19 letter to the Attorney General, a copy of which was sent to Ms. Burchett. We therefore find that the city's response to Ms. Burchett did not violate the Open Records Act.
KRS 61.872(4) states that if a public records request is sent to someone who does not have custody or control of the requested public records, the person who receives the request must notify the requester of this fact and provide the requester with the name and location of the official custodian of the public records. In its original response, the city partially discharged this obligation by notifying Ms. Burchett that it did not have custody of a list of city residents who are registered to vote. KRS 61.872 (4) also required the city to provide Ms. Burchett with the name and location of the official custodian of the list. To the extent that the city failed to do so, its original response was procedurally deficient. See, for example, 95-ORD-81.
This deficiency was corrected after Ms. Burchett filed her open records appeal. On March 19, city clerk Don W. Everman Jr. notified Ms. Burchett that the custodian of voting records for the City of Olive Hill is Carter County Clerk Hugh McDavid. Mr. Everman also provided her with the county clerk's address. Having thus complied with the Open Records Act, albeit belatedly, we find no violation of the Act.
A party aggrieved by this decision may appeal it by initiating action in the appropriate circuit court pursuant to KRS 61.880(5) and KRS 61.882. Pursuant to KRS 61.880(3), the Attorney General should be notified of any action in circuit court, but should not be named as a party in that action or in any subsequent proceeding.