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Clerk and IT describe surge in public-records requests; staff consider dedicated records position

5489220 · July 8, 2025
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

The city clerk and IT staff described a large and growing volume of public-records requests that staff call "predatory" in some cases; staff said fees collected do not cover the labor and the city is weighing hiring a dedicated public-records position and system/process refinements.

City Clerk Julie told the commission her office and other departments are receiving large, complex public-records requests that often require extensive cross-departmental gathering and redaction. She said requests often involve multiple departments and voluminous email or attachment searches.

Julie and IT Director Alberto Cerrelli described operational challenges: many records remain in mixed digital and paper formats across departments; searches for email content can return thousands of messages and require iterative narrowing of scope with the…

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