John Femino v. Woburn, City of - City Clerk (SPR 20170401)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Public Records Division Rebecca S. Murray Supervisor ofR ecords March 29, 2017 SPR17/401 JohnFemino Dear Mr. Femino: This office has received your January 24, 2017 email appealing the lack of compliance of the Woburn City Clerk to your records request. After reviewing the information you shared with this office, I find that I am unable to accept your appeal. The requirements for an appeal are as follows: Such appeal shall be in writing, and shall include a copy of the letter by which the request was made and, if available, a copy of the letter by which the custodian responded. The Supervisor shall accept an appeal only from a person who had made his or her record request in writing. An oral request, while valid as a public record request pursuant to 950 CMR 32.06(1)(a), may not be the basis of an appeal under 950 CMR 32.08. In order for this office to proceed with your petition, you must send a copy of the original request letters you sent to the City. Please feel free to re-submit your appeal when you have retrieved copies of all the required documents. The Public Records Access Regulations, which govern the procedural aspects of all appeals, require that an appeal to this office be filed within ninety (90) days of the date of your request letter, or within ninety (90) days of the date of a written response from the record custodian. See 950 C.M.R. 32.08 (l)(d); 950 C.M.R. 32.08 (l)(e). The attachments you provided with your appeal have exceeded the ninety day limit. You may make a new request to the Office for the same information. The Office has ten (10) business days in which to respond to your new requests. G. L. c. 66, § lO(b). If the Office denies your request or fails to respond within ten business days, you may appeal to this office within the statutory time frame. At that time this office will review the matter. To assist in requesting and responding to requests for public records please refer to our publication, A Guide to the Massachusetts Public Records Law. This document is available on the Internet, free of charge, at http://www.sec.state.ma.us/pre/prepdf/guide.pdf. Attorneys on my staff are available during regular business hours to answer general questions regarding the Public 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

William Campbell SPRl 7/401 Page2 March 29, 2017 Records Law. Please contact my office directly at the telephone number provided in this determination for further information. Sincerely, ~~ Supervisor of Records cc: William C. Campbell