Public comment urges transparency on records policy and release of $395,000 facility study

During the call to audience, Chris Sutton urged the board to 'table' consideration of cutting public-records processing time from four hours to two and to seek alternatives such as different request systems or charging commercial requesters. Sutton said the board should ask legal counsel whether the facility-study database is a public record and urged release of the $395,000 consulting study: "We spent $395,000 of taxpayer dollars on a facility consulting firm, and our community still hasn't been given access to the data."

Sutton asked the board to "table the changing of records requests policy until all options have been entertained" and to ask the attorney whether the facility database is a public record. Board members later voted to send the public-records policy (5070/7350) back to policy committee for further work.

The board did not immediately release the facility study during the meeting; the issue was raised as a transparency concern and the public comment requests will be available in the meeting record. Legal counsel and staff indicated that applicability of public-records rules depends on the nature of the data and vendor agreements.