Joseph Colangelo v. Plymouth County Commissioners (SPR 20251108)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Public Records Division Manza Arthur Supervisor of Records May 6, 2025 SPR25/1108 Francis G. Basler Jr. Records Access Officer/Administrator County of Plymouth 44 Obery Street Plymouth, MA 02360 Dear Mr. Basler: I have received the petition of Joseph Colangelo appealing the response of the County of Plymouth (County) to a request for public records. See G. L. c. 66, § 10A; see also 950 C.M.R. 32.08(1). On April 17, 2025, Mr. Colangelo requested the following records: [1] All communications in any form that state or refer to the Town of Hanover missing the deadline to submit the Sylvester building ARPA Request. [2] All communications and/or records on any and all building improvement projects that were applied for ARPA funding to the County. A review of information on the County’s website reveals that several projects similar to Hanover’s received funding. [3] Any and all records between the County and/or Plymouth County community and Clifton, Larson, Allen LLP (CLA) that relate in any way to any and all building improvement projects under ARPA that CLA was involved in for the County. The County provided Mr. Colangelo with a response on April 18, 2025. Unsatisfied with the County’s response, Mr. Colangelo petitioned this office, and this appeal, SPR25/1108, was opened as a result. Subsequently, the County provided a supplemental response dated May 2, 2025, which Mr. Colangelo appealed. Fee Estimates – Municipalities A municipality may assess a reasonable fee for the production of a public record except those records that are freely available for public inspection. G. L. c. 66, § 10(d). The fees must reflect the actual cost of complying with a particular request. Id. A maximum fee of five cents 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

Francis G. Basler Jr. SPR25/1108 Page 2 May 6, 2025 ($.05) per page may be assessed for a black and white single or double-sided photocopy of a public record. G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(i). Municipalities may not assess a fee for the first (two) 2 hours of employee time to search for, compile, segregate, redact or reproduce the record or records requested unless the municipality has 20,000 people or less. G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iii). Where appropriate, municipalities may include as part of the fee an hourly rate equal to or less than the hourly rate attributed to the lowest paid employee who has the necessary skill required to search for, compile, segregate, redact or reproduce a record requested, but the fee shall not be more than $25 per hour. Id. However, municipalities may charge more than $25 per hour if such rate is approved by the Supervisor of Records under a petition under G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv). A fee shall not be assessed for time spent segregating or redacting records unless such segregation or redaction is required by law or approved by the Supervisor of Records under a petition under G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv). See G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iii); 950 C.M.R. 32.06(4). Current appeals In his April 23, 2025 appeal, Mr. Colangelo stated, “[p]ursuant to MGL c 66 §10 (V) the requested records are in the public interest likely to contribute to the public understanding of the operations or activities of the government and I have no commercial interests as the requestor.” In his May 5, 2025 appeal, Mr. Colangelo stated, “[t]he fees should be waived; the records should be provided. I’m certainly willing to be flexible and willing to provide the County a sensible amount of time to turnaround my request. If this request was made of the Town of Hanover I could have someone in our IT Department copy and paste responsive emails onto a thumb drive relatively quickly.” The County’s April 18th and May 2nd Responses In its April 18, 2025 response, the County assessed a fee of $5,000.00 to provide responsive records. The County stated: Your request is massive given the ARPA program started March of 2021 ... I alone have 1,803 emails related to the ARPA program and more than another 3,500+ relating to building projects that were funded by ARPA within the County buildings ... Following the laws and guidelines detailed in 950 CMR 32.00 as issued by the Supervisor of Public Records under the authority of G. L. c. 66,§ 1, for identifying, printing, reviewing, and producing your request could run easily over $5,000 in costs ... Any specification as to the records you are looking for will help me narrow the scope and reduce your costs. Clarification will also help identify the documents more quickly. Given no change in request, I will send you a good faith

Francis G. Basler Jr. SPR25/1108 Page 3 May 6, 2025 estimate of the request within 10 business days of today, it will take many hours to question those involved and analyze how many documents are covered in your request. I will try to complete the task as quickly as possible. In its May 2, 2025 response, the County stated as follows: The time to locate, identify, pull from the files and re-shelve or refile a public record First 4 hours credit (no charge per statute) $-100.00 105.80 hours x $25.00 per hour (per state law) $2,645.22 50,788 pages x $0.05 center per page $2,539.40 Total Due $5,084.92 The County also stated, “[r]ate of $25.00 per hour is determinable by MGL. See MGL c.66§ 10 (if a municipality is required to devote more than 4 hours of employee’s time to search for, compile, segregate, redact or reproduce a record requested, the records access officer may include as part of the fee an hourly rate equal to or less than the hourly rate attributed to the lowest paid employee who has the necessary skill required to search for, compile, segregate, redact or reproduce a record requested). Although the County has estimated that the process of compiling, reviewing, and preparing responsive documents for production will take 105.80 hours of employee time, it is unclear how the County requires this amount of time to produce responsive records. The County must advise how much time is needed to search, how much time is needed to segregate and/or redact under the law. Additionally, if redactions are required, I find the County must provide information about whether the responsive records contain information that is required by law to be segregated or redacted, as well as the applicable statutes, if any. As such, the County must provide further details regarding its fee estimate. See G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv) (requiring the amount of the fee be reasonable). Further upon review, it is unclear how the County arrived at a figure of $2,645.22 as 105.80 hours x $25 = $2,645.00. Fee waivers In his appeal petition, Mr. Colangelo states, “[t]he fees should be waived; the records should be provided.” G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(v) provides the following with respect to waiving a fee for the production of responsive records: the records access officer may waive or reduce the amount of any fee charged under this subsection upon a showing that disclosure of a requested record is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public

Francis G. Basler Jr. SPR25/1108 Page 4 May 6, 2025 understanding of the operations or activities of the government and is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requestor, or upon a showing that the requestor lacks the financial ability to pay the full amount of the reasonable fee. Although the Supervisor may encourage fees to be waived, the Supervisor may not mandate that a records access officer waive fees assessed for complying with a public records request; rather, as described above, the records access officer may waive or reduce the amount of any fee upon a showing of various factors. See G. L. c. 66, § 10 (d)(v); see also 950 C.M.R. 32.07(2)(k) (emphasis added). I encourage Mr. Colangelo and the County to communicate further in order to facilitate producing records efficiently and affordably. Mr. Colangelo may wish to include applicable time periods or additional factors to enable the search to be processed. G. L. c. 66, § l0(a)(i). The County must use its knowledge of the records to facilitate providing any responsive records. G. L. c. 66, § l0(a)(vii) (an agency or 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 agency or municipality to produce records sought more efficiently and affordably). For the reasons discussed above, I find the County must revise its fee estimate or provide further explanation of how the fee assessed is expressly provided for and consistent with G. L. c. 66, § 10(d). Conclusion Accordingly, the County is ordered to provide Mr. Colangelo with a response to the request, provided in a manner consistent with this order, the Public Records Law, and its Regulations within ten business days. A copy of any such response must be provided to this office. It is preferable to send an electronic copy of the response to this office at pre@sec.state.ma.us. Mr. Colangelo may appeal the substantive nature of the County’s response within ninety days. See 950 C.M.R. 32.08(1). Sincerely, Manza Arthur Supervisor of Records cc: Joseph Colangelo