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Policy committee moves public-records update to first read after anonymous-request debate
Summary
Committee updated Policy 08/2001 on public records to clarify request forms and extension-of-time reasoning and, citing experience with bulk anonymous FOIA requests, approved the revision for first reading.
The Upper Adams policy committee reviewed proposed updates to the districtright-to-know/public-records policy (08/2001) to clarify requester definitions, the extension-of-time reasoning for responses, and procedures for anonymous submissions.
Staff described a recent wave of anonymous, auto-generated requests submitted via a platform called FOIABuddy and said the Office of Open Records has advised that such anonymous requests need not be fulfilled because they must come from an identifiable individual. "Over the summer, districts were getting inundated with these kind of auto generated anonymous requests," a staff member said, noting that the district previously received many requests to different employees and that consolidating routing to the designated Right-to-Know officer is part of the policy update.
A committee member proposed wording that anonymous requests "will not be honored nor processed," and the committee agreed to include language to that effect. With that clarification, the committee agreed to move the updated public-records policy to first reading.
Next steps: administrators will include the revised policy in the next board packet for first reading and implement consolidated routing to the district Right-to-Know officer as described in the draft.
