Ronald Alexander v. Wellesley, Town of - Public Schools (SPR 20171719)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Public Records Division Rebecca S. Murray Supervisor ofR ecords December 19, 201 7 SPR17/1719 Judith M. Belliveau Assistant Superintendent, Finance and Operations Wellesley Public Schools 40 Kingsbury Street Wellesley, MA 02481 Dear Ms. Belliveau: I have received your petition on behalf of the Town of Wellesley (Town) seeking relief from its obligation to produce responsive records. G. L. c. 66, § lO(c); see also 950 C.M.R. 32.06(4). As required by law, the Town furnished a copy of this petition to the requester. G. L. c. 66, § lO(c). In a request dated November 21, 2017 and further clarified on December 6, 2017, Ronald Alexander requested to inspect "five (5) folders of documents that I was permitted to inspect on December 27, 2016" and modified the date of the responsive records to extend to December 7, 201 7. Petitions for an extension of time Under the Public Records Law, upon a showing of good cause, the Supervisor of Records (Supervisor) may grant a single extension to an agency not to exceed 20 business days and a single extension to a municipality not to exceed 30 business days. In determining whether there has been a showing of good cause, the Supervisor shall consider, but shall not be limited to considering: (i) the need to search for, collect, segregate or examine records; (ii) the scope of redaction required to prevent unlawful disclosure; (iii) the capacity or the normal business hours of operation of the agency or municipality to produce the request without the extension; (iv) efforts undertaken by the agency or municipality in fulfilling the current request and previous requests; (v) whether the request, either individually or as part of a series of requests from the same requestor, is frivolous or intended to harass or intimidate the agency or municipality; and (vi) the public interest served by expeditious disclosure. 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

Judith M. Belliveau SPRI 7/1719 Page2 December 19, 201 7 G. L. c. 66, § IO(c). If the Supervisor determines that the request is part of a series of contemporaneous requests that are frivolous or designed to intimidate or harass, and the requests are not intended for the broad dissemination of information to the public about actual or alleged government activity, the Supervisor may grant a longer extension or relieve the agency or municipality of its obligation to provide copies of the records sought. Id. The filing of a petition does not affect the requirement that a Records Access Officer (RAO) shall provide an initial response to a requester within ten business days after receipt of a request for public records. 950 C.M.R. 36.06(4)(b). Request.for relieff rom obligation to respond to request In its petition dated December 12, 2017 in support of its request for relief from its obligation to respond to Mr. Alexander's November 21st request, the Town explains the request submitted to the Wellesley School Department (Department) "is duplicative of his prior requests or seeks documents that he created and filed with the Department." See SPRI 7/1282. Further, the Town indicates Mr. Alexander "has filed his requests in a manner that appears calculated, at best, to make busy-work for the Town employees, wasting the Town's resources, but often to intimidate and harass employees." To support that Mr. Alexander has shown a "pattern of harassment" the Town explains "Mr. Alexander has filed more than (180) public records requests Department, the majority of which have been filed since August of 2016. He has also submitted approximately forty (40) requests to the Board of Selectmen, or employees under its supervision, and approximately eight (8) requests with the Police Department. Accordingly, Mr. Alexander's total number of public records requests now exceed two hundred and twenty (220)." Mr. Alexander sent an email in response to the Town's petition on December 14th and disputes the Town's numbers. Mr. Alexander notes he "preformed an exhaustive audit" of his public records request since September 1, 2013 and the total was "one hundred and three (103)." He indicated this would be "less than two requests per month" which he believes does not "constitute harassment of any kind." November 2Ft Request The Town explains that when the Department sought clarification of his November 21st request "Mr. Alexander admitted to seeking documents that had previously been requested and to which he had previous access." Mr. Alexander extended the scope of his request however to include any relevant documents until December 7, 2017. The Town indicated it "will provide Mr. Alexander with all the responsive documents from December 7, 2016 through December 7, 2017, that Mr. Alexander did not create and that has not already been provided to him." The

Judith M. Belliveau SPRl 7/1719 Page 3 December 19, 2017 Town further states "Mr. Alexander does not need copies of those records that have already been provided to him for the purpose of public dissemination." Mr. Alexander also disputes this claim, indicating that "the Department did not provide me with copies of any records at any time" and that all of his requests "have requested to inspect existing documents." After a phone call with Mr. Alexander, and confirmed in a subsequent email sent by him, Mr. Alexander indicates he "would be satisfied just getting access (inspecting) to the responsive records that are not requests made by myself." He indicates "[t]hat would be the contents of Folder #4 and Folder #5 as described in the chronology section of my response ...." Mr. Alexander also explains "[t]he Department does not need to provide access to my public records requests, though if possible I would like to inspect any and all inter-departmental communications regarding my requests (which I of course would not have my own copies of)." Conclusion In light of the above correspondence from Mr. Alexander regarding the narrowed scope of his request, I find it is unnecessary to opine on the Town's petition for relief of its obligation to provide responsive records. Sincerely, ~~ Supervisor of Records cc: Ronald Alexander