Walt Thompson v. Newburyport, City of - Office of the City Clerk (SPR 20250202)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Public Records Division Manza Arthur Supervisor of Records February 5, 2025 SPR25/0202 J.T. Chamberlain City Clerk’s Office City of Newburyport 60 Pleasant Street Newburyport, MA 01950 Dear J.T. Chamberlain: I have received the petition of Walt Thompson appealing the response of the City of Newburyport (City) to a request for public records. See G. L. c. 66, § 10A; see also 950 C.M.R. 32.08(1). On January 13, 2025, Mr. Thompson requested the following: 1. **Materials Purchased**: A detailed list of all materials (books, periodicals, digital media, etc.) purchased by the library in 2024. 2. **Materials Disposed**: A detailed list of all materials disposed of or removed from the library’s collection in 2024. 3. **Expenditure Reports**: Copies of expenditure reports related to the acquisition and disposal of library materials in 2024. The City responded on January 15, and January 16, 2025. Unsatisfied with the City’s responses, Mr. Thompson petitioned this office, and this appeal, SPR25/0202, was opened as a result. The Public Records Law The Public Records Law strongly favors disclosure by creating a presumption that all governmental records are public records. G. L. c. 66, § 10A(d); 950 C.M.R. 32.03(4). “Public records” is broadly defined to include all documentary materials or data, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received by any officer or employee of any agency or municipality of the Commonwealth, unless falling within a statutory exemption. G. L. c. 4, § 7(26). It is the burden of the records custodian to demonstrate the application of an exemption in order to withhold a requested record. G. L. c. 66, § 10(b)(iv); 950 C.M.R. 32.06(3); see also Dist. 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

J.T. Chamberlain SPR25/0202 Page 2 February 5, 2025 Attorney for the Norfolk Dist. v. Flatley, 419 Mass. 507, 511 (1995) (custodian has the burden of establishing the applicability of an exemption). To meet the specificity requirement a custodian must not only cite an exemption, but must also state why the exemption applies to the withheld or redacted portion of the responsive record. If there are any fees associated with a response, a written good faith estimate must be provided. G. L. c. 66, § 10(b)(viii); see also 950 C.M.R. 32.07(2). Once fees are paid, a records custodian must provide the responsive records. Current Appeal In his appeal petition, Mr. Thompson contends the following: The Newburyport Public Library’s chief librarian ... has written that 10+ hours of research are needed to fulfill an open records request…please see below…of what has been purchased and discarded by our public library in 2024. . . . The information I requested is in the library’s computers. 10+ hours is without belief. The City’s January 15th and 16th Responses In its January 15, 2025 response, the City indicates “that this would take [library] staff 10 hours to complete.” In its January 16, 2025 response, the City provides the following details concerning the estimate for the amount of time it will take to complete Mr. Thompson’s request: We have literally tens of hundreds of pages of invoices related to borrowable materials that are relevant to the scape of Walt Thompson’s request. My Administrative assistant is also making sure she includes all the invoices. She is confirming this today. Once these have been scanned, I need to review the scans to make sure there aren’t any invoices that should not be in there, purchases that are not relevant to the request. . . . Redacting the City Financial account information and vendor account information will add an estimated additional 6 hours to the project. The redaction will need to be done on hundreds of invoices, close to a thousand printed pages. All the scanned invoices will need to be printed (1 hour). All Vendor Account Information needs to be redacted from every page of each invoice. All City G/ L Account information needs to be redacted from each invoice (4 hours). The invoices will need to be rescanned and saved to a flash drive (1 hour). For this request ... the list of expenditures is simple as the library would just need to get a Munis report which would take less than 15 minutes. The list of discards is also simple, the library has two spreadsheets from the Archive Center which could be put on a flash drive.

J.T. Chamberlain SPR25/0202 Page 3 February 5, 2025 The only listing of the purchases is on the itemized invoices. If you want to know what the library purchased from January 1, 2024 through December 31, 2024, they will have to scan the itemized invoices. The library purchases thousands of borrowable items a year. The itemized invoices are the only way you can get a listing of the items they purchased. They do not create records. In an email to Mr. Thompson and this office on January 23, 2025, the City further explains that “2 of the 3 requests would take no time at all to fulfill. The remaining request is the one which will take the library some time to compile.” Modified Request Subsequent to the opening of this appeal, in an email to the City and this office on January 23, 2025, Mr. Thompson narrowed the scope of his request and provided the following clarification: Today, for now, I will limit my request to items 1 and 2 below. 1. **Materials Purchased**: A detailed list of all materials (books, periodicals, digital media, etc.) purchased by the library in 2024. 2. **Materials Disposed**: A detailed list of all materials disposed of or removed from the library’s collection in 2024. 1…by author and title. 2…by author and title and where they went after being removed from the library. For now, my third request can wait. [sic] Conclusion Given the modifications to Mr. Thompson’s original request, I find it unnecessary to address the issues raised in his appeal at this time. This office encourages Mr. Thompson and the City to continue to communicate directly in order to facilitate providing records more efficiently and affordably. See G. L. c. 66, § 10(b)(vii) (a municipality shall 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 municipality to produce the records sought more efficiently and affordably). Accordingly, the City is ordered to provide Mr. Thompson with a response to his modified January 23rd request in a manner consistent with the Public Records Law and its Regulations within ten business days. It is preferable to send an electronic copy of the response to this office at pre@sec.state.ma.us. If issues remain unresolved, Mr. Thompson may appeal the substantive nature of the City’s response to his modified request within ninety days. See 950 C.M.R. 32.08(1).

J.T. Chamberlain SPR25/0202 Page 4 February 5, 2025 Sincerely, Manza Arthur Supervisor of Records cc: Walt Thompson