Patrick Higgins v. Freetown, Town of - Town Clerk (SPR 20170295)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Public Records Division Rebecca S. Murray Supervisor of Records March 9, 2017 SPR17/295 Patrick Higgins Dear Mr. Higgins: I have received your petition appealing the response to your public records request made by the Freetown Town Clerk to your request for records. The requirements for an appeal are as follows: Such appeal shall be in writing, shall include a copy of the letter by which the request was made, and shall include a copy of all correspondence from the custodian. The supervisor shall accept an appeal only from a person who has made his or her request in writing. An oral request, while valid as a public records request pursuant to 950 CMR 32.05(3), may not be the basis of an appeal under 950 CMR 32.08. In your petition you refer to "a letter from Town Administrator which was included in the package saying that they were withholding the minutes for several dates from 2013, 2014 and 2015, and states that they were redacted due to the matter being ongoing." This letter was not included in your appeal petition. Given that a copy of this letter was not included, we are unable to assist you in this appeal at this time. Please feel free to re-submit your appeal when you have retrieved copies of all the required documents. Sincerely, Rebecca S. Murray Supervisor of Records cc: Jacqueline Brown One Ashburton Place, Room 1719, Boston, Massachusetts 02108 • (617) 727-2832• Fax: (617) 727-5914 sec.state.ma.us/pre • pre@sec.state.ma.us