Jason Ray v. Springfield, City of - Office of the City Clerk (SPR 20220665)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Public Records Division Rebecca S. Murray Supervisor of Records March 29, 2022 SPR22/0665 Marvenia Frazier-Shubrick Public Records Coordinator City of Springfield 36 Court Street, Room 123 Springfield, MA 01103 Dear Ms. Shubrick: On March 22, 2022, this office received your petition on behalf of the City of Springfield (City) seeking a waiver of statutory limits on fees that may be assessed in responding to a public records request. G. L. c. 66, § 10 (d)(iv). As required by law, the City furnished a copy of its petition to the requestor, Jason Ray. G. L. c. 66, § 10(c). On March 9, 2022, Mr. Ray requested four cateogories of records concerning the City and its employees from “…Monday, March 7, 2022 to Wednesday, March 9, 2022.” Subsequent to the intervention by a staff member of the Public Records Division, I learned that Mr. Ray modified his request. In a letter to this office, dated March 29, 2022, the City states, “[w]hen [Mr. Ray] was presented with the proposed charges for the work the City did, he withdrew that #R005199-030922. He then modified his request to a greatly reduced scope of an email search. We advised him that we had closed the previous request and gave him a number for the ‘new’ request.” Conclusion In light of the above, it is unnecessary to opine on the City’s petition for a waiver of statutory limits on fees relating to the withdrawn request. Further, this office encourages Mr. Ray and the City to continue to communicate to facilitate providing records more efficiently and affordably. See G. L. c. 66, § 10(b)(vii). 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

Marvenia Frazier-Shubrick SPR22/0665 Page 2 March 29, 2022 Sincerely, Rebecca S. Murray Supervisor of Records cc: Jason Ray Steve Roche, Esq.