Request By:
Donald R. Hall, # 153862
Sheriff Danny R. Webb
Harold D. Bolling
Opinion
Opinion By: Jack Conway, Attorney General; Amye L. Bensenhaver, Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Decision
This matter having been presented to the Attorney General in an open records appeal, and the Attorney General being sufficiently advised, we find that the Letcher County Sheriff's Office did not violate the Open Records Act in the disposition of Donald Ray Hall's April 10, 2008, inquiry concerning the status of the Sheriff's investigation into the location of records that were the subject of this office's decision in 08-ORD-059. Because Mr. Hall's inquiry was an improperly framed request for information, 1 as opposed to a properly framed request for public records, we find that the Sheriff had no obligation to create a record in which he responded to the inquiry. It is the decision of this office that 06-ORD-024, a copy of which is attached hereto and incorporated by reference, is controlling. At page 3 of that decision, we reaffirmed "a line of decisions dating from the inception of the Open Records Act . . . recogniz[ing] that a public agency is not statutorily obligated to honor a request for information as opposed to a request for specifically described public records. " We find no error in the Sheriff's disposition of Mr. Hall's April 10 request.
Questions concerning the Sheriff's veracity are not justiciable in an open records appeal. Nor is it within the scope of our authority under KRS 61.880(2) to conduct an investigation into allegations of the improper removal or destruction of public records. 2 The power to enforce 08-ORD-059 resides in the courts.
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.
Footnotes
Footnotes
1 Mr. Hall's inquiry reads as follows:
Pursuant to the Attorney General's opinion in 08-ORD-059 issued March 21, 2008, that it was incumbent on you to take immediate efforts to secure the records in my previous request to your office on February 1, 2008, I wish to know if you have secured those records, if not then why? I would furthermore wish to be kept inform of your progress. I expect a response within 3 days of receipt of this requests.
2 KRS 171.720 addresses this issue and provides as follows:
The head of each state and local agency shall notify the department [of Libraries and Archives] of any actual, impending or threatened unlawful removal, defacing, alteration or destruction of records in the custody of the agency that shall come to his attention, and with the assistance of the department shall initiate action through the Attorney General for recovery of such records as shall have been unlawfully removed and for such other redress as may be provided by law.