Councilor seeks tracking of public-records costs as residents press for transparency

Councilor Stephanie Smith introduced a resolution asking the administration and CFO to provide an accounting of how much the city spent in FY ’24 responding to public records requests, including labor hours, stipends and outside counsel fees. Smith said the intent is transparency, not discouraging requests: “The public absolutely has the right to send their requests, and it’s the city’s responsibility to answer the request,” she said. She asked for a report and a plan to track these costs and proposed the Finance team meet with departments and return with findings by the first meeting in February.

The resolution drew support from members of the public who raised similar concerns during public participation. Peggy Serino told the council the city should not charge residents for public information and suggested the public already pays those costs through taxes: “The costs have already been paid for by the taxes the citizens pay,” she said. Melissa Reedy urged the council to disclose how much the city paid outside counsel, specifically naming KP Law’s letters to residents and asking, “What possibly could be in our request that they are afraid to be made public?”

Councilors framed the item as an operational-accounting question: Smith and colleagues said separating routine operating legal expenses from extraordinary or investigatory costs would help budgeting and public understanding. The council voted to refer the resolution to the administration for study and reporting. The motion to refer passed by voice vote; no final appropriation was authorized at this meeting.

Next steps: the council requested the administration and CFO propose a method to tag or track public-records-related staff time and outside counsel expenses and to return with a report in early February.