Russell Seelig v. Springfield, City of - Public Schools (SPR 20190512)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Public Records Division Rebecca S. Murray Supervisor ofR ecords March 12, 2019 SPR19/512 Anthony I. Wilson, Esq. City Clerk 36 Court Street Springfield, MA 01103 Dear Attorney Wilson: I have received the petition of Russell Seelig appealing the response of the City of Springfield (City) to a request for public records. G. L. c. 66, § 1O A; see also 950 C.M.R. 32.08(1 ). Specifically, Mr. Seelig requested a "listing of all the valid sales of single family residence in Neighborhood 1283 for calendar year 2017 and a copy of the Comparable Sale Analysis for the FY19 valuations for each of them." Previous Appeal This appeal is the subject of a previous case. See SPRl 9/205 Determination of the Supervisor of records (February 13, 2019). I closed SPR19/205 by ordering the City to provide a response to the request, in a manner consistent with the order, the Public Records Law and its Regulations without delay. It is my understanding that the City provided Mr. Seelig a response dated February 26, 2019. In the City's response, Mr. Seelig was provided links to access records responsive to his request. Unsatisfied with this response, Mr. Seelig petitioned this office and as a result SPR19/512 was opened. Current Appeal In a letter to this office dated February 26, 2019, Mr. Seelig writes, "I agree, that it shows a path 'Comparable Summaries.' However it still does not respond to my request for Comparable Sales Analysis." Mr. Seelig further states "[t]he 'Comparable Sales Summaries' are substantially different from the Comparable Sales Analysis in that the former provides only the sale date, price, TLA, Style, yr blt and grade whereas the Comparable Sales Analysis provides about 32 attributes of a comparable property. For each valid sale, there will be a one page Comparable Sales Analysis, and there are probably 12-15 valid sales for the neighborhood indicated meaning that there will be about 1-15 pages of data, all of which are stored electronically." One Ashburton Place, Room 1719, Boston, Massachusetts 02108 • (617) 727-2832• Fax: (617) 727-5914 sec.state.ma.us/pre • pre@sec.state.rna.us

Attorney Wilson SPR19/512 Page 2 March 12, 2019 Please be advised, the duty to comply with requests for records extends to those records that exist and are in the possession, custody, or control of the custodian ofrecords at the time of the request. See G. L. c. 66, § lO(a)(ii). Although the City provided Mr. Seelig the "Comparable Sales Summaries'\ it is unclear if the City possesses any other records responsive to his request. Conclusion Accordingly, the City is hereby ordered to provide Mr. Seelig a response to the request, provided in a manner consistent with this order, the Public Records Law and its Regulations without delay. It is preferable to send an electronic copy of this response to this office at pre@sec.state.ma. us. Sincerely, Rebecca S. Murray Supervisor of Records cc: Russell Seelig