Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Foia Appeal topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Board upholds partial denial of FOIA appeal 25-94 after prosecutor explains records limits
Summary
The board voted to uphold in part a FOIA appeal after county legal counsel explained requested records did not exist in report form and producing raw data would require extensive manual retrieval estimated to take substantial staff time.
The Delta County Board of Commissioners upheld in part the county’s response to FOIA appeal 25-94 after prosecutor/legal counsel explained that several of the requested records do not exist in the form requested and that producing the raw underlying data would require extensive manual retrieval.
Counsel told the board that the office can produce the physical court documents (plea forms, NOLI, verdict forms) but cannot produce a complete synthesized report for 2024–2025 without manually pulling thousands of files because of a recent case-tracking system change and inconsistent data entry among clerks. Counsel said the manual work to assemble the requested set would require roughly 1.87 full-time years (estimate provided) and would impose a heavy burden on staff. The board discussed ownership of court-generated documents versus county-held records and clarified that some documents are court-originated and may be subject to paper-copy reproduction fees.
After discussion the board moved to uphold the partial disclosure denial for items determined not to currently exist, while directing that available documents for item 1 (total criminal cases filed for certain years) that have already been generated be provided and that future 2024/2025 records be produced when they become available.
