White Salmon council approves updated public records policy after debate over body-camera redaction

The White Salmon City Council on April 15 approved changes to the city's Public Records Policy and Procedure that increase fees for producing and redacting police body-camera video and align policy language with state guidance.

Staff said the updated fee schedule incorporates results from a recent cost-of-service study; staff cited a $0.84-per-minute figure derived from state guidelines. The policy also updates procedural language to reflect current state guidance on redaction and exempt material.

Councilors raised privacy and liability concerns for footage that includes minors or other sensitive content. Councilor Doug Rainbolt said he would oppose the resolution unless it explicitly required more than one reviewer for videos involving sensitive material, such as footage of juveniles. Chief Mike Hepner acknowledged the concern but said the police department faces a heavy volume of public-records requests and currently relies on just two trained employees for redaction, adding that adding a second-review step for every release would overextend existing resources.

Council discussed possible middle-ground approaches including selectively adding reviewers for sensitive cases and revisiting the fee schedule to fund additional review capacity in the future. In the end, Councilor Ben Giant moved and Councilor David Lindley seconded adoption of Resolution No. 2026-04-643. The motion passed 4-1 (Giant, Fink, Mora and Lindley in favor; Rainbolt opposed).

Councilors commended staff for balancing transparency with privacy concerns and asked staff to continue evaluating workload and resource needs to implement the new fee and redaction procedures.