Petralia, Alex v. Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority - Office of the General Counsel (SPR 20150571)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Public Records Division Shawn A. Williams Supervisor ofR ecords December 4, 2015 SPRlS/571 Ms. Jean Berke, Esq. Deputy General Counsel Department of Transportation Registry of Motor Vehicles Washington Street Boston, MA Dear Attorney Berke: I have received the petition of Alex Petralia appealing the response of the Department of Transportation-Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) to his request for public records. G. L. c. 66 § lO(b); see also 950 C.M.R. 32.08(2). Specifically, Mr. Petralia requested a copy of the data stored by the RMV for all traffic tickets and/or citations from 2000-June 9, 2015 (date of the request), provided in Excel or SQL, for a specifically defined set of data fields. In correspondence between you and Mr. Petralia you explained that his request would result in approximately fifteen (15) years' of traffic citations, which will likely extract millions of citation records. You further explained to Mr. Petralia that the citation data is not stored in a SQL database. You stated, "[i]t is stored in an IDMS-R (relational) database which uses multiple record types and relational pointers to store information about each citation. The raw data cannot be extracted in a way that is usable by anyone unless they also have the IDMS-R software installed on a hardware platform that can support its use. Custom extracts of the data, such as the one requested require the RMV to spend time in extracting, compiling and transforming the citation data into a format that is more accessible to outside sources, such as an Excel spreadsheet or a comma delimited text file." This same day, Mr. Petralia responded that he was interested in receiving nineteen (19) listed data fields. Fee Estimate On June 23, 2015 you provided Mr. Petralia with a written, good faith estimate for the lowest paid MassDOT Information Technology (IT) employee to run a search query using the specific fields of data, compile all the data and transform that data into a readable document. The RMV estimates that it will take ten (10) hours at seventy-five ($75.00) dollars per hour to produce data for fifteen ( 15) years of specific data field information at a total cost of seven OneAshburton Place, Room 1719, Boston, Massachusetts 02108 · (617) 727-2832 ·Fax (617) 727-5914 www.sec.state.ma. us/pre

Ms. Jean Berke, Esq. SPR15/571 Page Two December 7, 2015 hundred fifty ($750.00) dollars. In a June 28, 2015 email, Mr. Petralia requested that the RMV waive all costs because he believes that the disclosure of this information is in the public interest and that he plans to disseminate the information for analysis and understanding by the public. The RMV declined the request to waive the fees, and Mr. Petralia appealed to this office. Waiver off ees The basis of Mr. Petralia's appeal is that he seeks a waiver of fees from the RMV for the fees regarding this request. He is also of the belief that the RMV already provided this data to another requester, in the format he requested. While Public Records Law encourages custodians to waive fees, this office cannot mandate that a custodian do so. A custodian of records may assess a reasonable fee for complying with a public records request. G. L. c. 66, § 10(a); 950 C.M.R. 32.06(2). Absent specific statutory authority to the contrary, the fees to be charged for complying with requests for public records are established by the Public Records Access Regulations (Regulations). 950 C.M.R. 32.06. Where paper records are requested, the Regulations define "search time" as the time needed to locate, pull from the file, copy andre-file public records. The information (data) in this request is not susceptible to ordinary means of reproduction, and the actual cost incurred from the use of the computer time may be assessed. 950 C.M.R. 32.06(1)(e-f). The Regulations also provide that in cases where search and segregation time is necessary a custodian of records may charge a pro-rated fee based on the hourly rate of the lowest paid employee who is capable of performing the task. 950 C.M.R. 32.06(1)(c). In an October 7, 2015 telephone discussion, you explained to an attorney on my staff that in order to satisfy this request, the RMV must run a search query using the specific fields of information requested, compile the data and then transform the data into a new record in a readable format. The data is not in Excel or SQL, it is only in IDM-R (rational database) and in order to read any of the data the requester would have to have a program that would allow the data to be readable. This same information was communicated to Mr. Petralia by RMV in its responses. You informed this office that the only employee capable of conducting a search and creating a new record using the raw data is an Information Technology employee at the lowest hourly rate of seventy-five dollars per hour, and that the tasks will take approximately ten (1 0) hours. Furthermore, you explained that the request Mr. Petralia mentions in his email request was for traffic citations from April2001-November 2002, limited in time and that even with that request, a query search had to be run and the raw data had to be converted into a new record in a different software format in order for the newspaper to analysis and use the citation information in its news article which was published in early 2003. You further explained that the record was not maintained in the format requested by Mr. Petralia.

Ms. Jean Berke, Esq. SPR15/571 Page Three December 7, 2015 I find, however, that the RMV has not fully explained why it would take ten (1 0) hours at a rate of seventy-five ($75.00) dollars per hour to retrieve the responsive records. I personally placed a call to you in late November 2015 to discuss this matter; you did not return my call. Accordingly, whereas RMV has not provided the sufficient detail to support its fee estimate, the RMV is hereby ordered, within ten (10) days of this order, to provide Mr. Petralia with a detailed fee estimate to support the $750 fee. G. L. c. 66, § IO(a); see also 950 C.M.R. 32.06(2) (where cost of complying with a request for public records is expected to exceed ten dollars ($10.00), custodian of records shall provide written good faith estimate). Once the fees are paid, you must provide the responsive records. A copy of any such response must be provided to this office. It is preferable to send an electronic copy of this response to this office at pre@sec. state.ma. us. Supervisor of Records cc: Mr. Alex Petralia