Kristi Copani v. Southbridge, Town of - Office of the Town Manager (SPR 20190064)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Public Records Division Rebecca S. Murray Supervisor ofR ecords January 15, 2019 SPR19/0064 Yvonne M. Tortis Executive Assistant Office of the Town Manager 41 Elm Street Southbridge, MA 01550 Dear Ms. Tortis: I have received your petition on behalf of the Town of Southbridge's Office of the Town Manager (Office) seeking an extension of time to furnish copies of a requested record, or any portion thereof. G. L. c. 66, § IO(c). As required by law, the Town furnished a copy of this petition to the requestor. Id. In a request, Kristi Copani sought records concerning "building, health, and fire violations" for residential properties in the Town. 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. G. L. c. 66, § IO(c). 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

Ms. Yvonne M. Tortis SPR19/0064 Page2 January 15, 2019 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 requestor within ten business days after receipt of a request for public records. 950 C.M.R. 36.06(4)(b). Current petition The Town petitioned this office on January 8, 2019 requesting an extension of 10 days. The Town states "[t]he information requested from Kristi, Gwendolyn Property Management, of our Health Inspection and Board of Health Departments, is listed below. This is an excessive request of those 2 departments that will take considerable time." The Town seeks a time extension in order search for the records in the departments and requests time to "research old files and create these reports." G. L. c. 66, § 10(c )(i)(ii)(iii). The Public Records Law provides that a municipality may provide a time frame not to exceed 25 business days to produce responsive records. G. L. c. 66, § IO(b)(vi). As mentioned above, the Town's time extension request indicated it would need "10 additional days." Under the Public Records Law and Access Regulations (Regulations), a municipality must provide a written response to the requestor that may "suggest a reasonable modification of the scope of the request or offer to assist the requestor to modify the scope of the request if doing so would enable the agency or municipality to produce records sought more efficiently and affordably." G. L. c. 66, § 1 O(b )(vii). This office encourages the Town and Ms. Copani to communicate further to enable the Town to provide the requested public records. Conclusion Accordingly, given that the Town has indicated it would produce records within 25 business days ofreceipt of the request, I find it unnecessary to opine on the Town's petition for an extension of time to produce records at this time. The Town must produce any responsive records to Ms. Copani in a manner consistent with the Public Records Law and its Access Regulations by February 13, 2019. Ms. Copani may appeal the substantive nature of the Town's response within 90 days. See 950 C.M.R. 32.08(1). ~~ a Rebecca S. Mu~~y-- - Supervisor of Records cc: Kristi Copani