Commonwealth Transparency v. Boston, City of - Public Records (SPR 20253173)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Public Records Division Manza Arthur Supervisor of Records November 12, 2025 SPR25/3173 Grace Jung Director of Public Records City of Boston 1 City Hall Square Boston, MA 02201 Dear Ms. Jung: I have received the petition of Commonwealth Transparency (requestor) appealing the response of the City of Boston (City) to a request for public records. See G. L. c. 66, § 10A; see also 950 C.M.R. 32.08(1). On February 1, 2025, the requestor requested, for the time period of October 20, 2024 through December 10, 2024, the following records: [1] Any letter, electronic communication, and/or message including but not limited to written documents, emails (Electronic mail), text messages, collaboration messages from platforms like teams, WhatsApp, and Git where the subject matter is The Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Emergency Shelter Policy, specifically, but not limited to Statement(s) on “Changes to the State’s Emergency Shelter Policy”; [2] Records which may be, but are not limited to meeting agendas or minutes; [3] Records which may be, but are not limited to correspondence sent to or received from [an identified individual]; [4] Records which may be, but are not limited to correspondence sent to or received from elected officials or representatives of any of the following [41 identified] municipalities. This request specifically includes searching all email accounts and addresses in your possession and/or under your control, including group and resource email addresses. The City responded on October 28, 2025, and assigned the request reference number R000532-020325. Unsatisfied with the response, the requestor petitioned this office and this appeal, SPR25/3173, was opened as a result. 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

Grace Jung SPR25/3173 Page 2 November 12, 2025 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. 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. The City’s October 28th Response In its October 28, 2025 response, the City stated as follows: Your request does not comply with the Massachusetts public records law and its access regulations, as it is overly broad and vague. A public records request must reasonably describe the records sought. G. L. c. 66, § 10(a)(i). In a recent Suffolk Superior Court case, the court found that “[t]he reasonable description requirement contemplates that a requesting party will identify documents or categories of documents with sufficient particularity that government employees will be able to understand exactly what they are looking for, and then make a prompt production.” Chawla v. Dep’t of Revenue, Suffolk. Sup. No. 1784CV02087, at 2 (January 23, 2019). The court further found “[r]equests for documents that are articulated with very broad language that calls upon non- lawyer administrative personnel to interpret the scope of what is sought, and then make fine judgments about what documents are and are not sufficiently ‘related’ to the category of materials requested, will not satisfy this statutory standard.” Id. (emphasis in original)...We encourage you to submit a new request with a more specific description or a narrower scope. In the meantime, this request will be closed.

Grace Jung SPR25/3173 Page 3 November 12, 2025 Current Appeal In the appeal, the requestor states, “[the City’s] response indicates that the request is deficient in specificity, this is factually untrue on its face, the request is very specific and defined.” Subsequent to the opening of this appeal, the City contacted the Public Records Division and the requestor via email on November 7, 2025. The City stated, The City has reviewed this request and conducted a search of its electronic databases to identify potentially responsive records. This search yielded 2,903 records. Due to such a high volume of potentially responsive records, this request imposes a considerable strain on City resources. For your request, the City must review all of the records before they can be released. First, the City must compile the responsive records by reviewing all records to determine which are responsive to your request and which are not. Second, the City must redact and segregate the records to ensure material protected by law is not released. In this request, the records must be reviewed for personally identifying information in accordance with exemption (c) of Massachusetts Public Records law. If you would like to narrow the scope of your request by providing specific search terms and party names/emails, it may lower the volume of potentially responsive records and speed up the process of review. Breadth of Request; Reasonable Description of Records Sought Please be advised, in Friedman v. Div. of Admin. Law Appeal and Bureau of Special Educ. Appeals, the Suffolk Superior Court, in its Memorandum of Decision and Order on Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss, stated: [The requester] has a right to seek public records from his government, provided he does so in a reasonable manner. [The agencies], in turn, have a right not to be inundated with drain-the-ocean records requests, provided they fulfill the basic expectations of the [Public Records Law] in a fair and transparent manner. See Friedman v. Div. of Admin. Law Appeal and Bureau of Special Educ. Appeals, Suffolk Sup. No. 2284CV02061-C, at 3 (February 14, 2023). The Court in Friedman noted, “the extraordinary volume of records called for in this case has compelled the Defendants to produce responsive materials in a ‘rolling’ fashion, rather than in accordance with deadlines contemplated by the [Public Records Law].” Id. at 1. The Court stated that:

Grace Jung SPR25/3173 Page 4 November 12, 2025 [T]he parties shall be expected to agree upon, to the greatest extent possible, the following: (a) appropriate definitions, time frames, and parameters regarding substance and scope for the identification of requested documents; (b) appropriate search terms to be used for the retrieval of responsive documents; (c) a reasonable time frame for the production of requested documents, if the statute’s presumptive deadlines are not realistic; (d) appropriate rules to govern the withholding of documents falling within the scope of a statutory privilege or privacy doctrine; and (e) an appropriate methodology for computing the reasonable fees that may be charged for responsive document production. Id. at 2. In addition, please be aware that the request must reasonably describe the specific records sought. In another case, the Superior Court found that under the Public Records Law “[t]he reasonable description requirement contemplates that a requesting party will identify documents or categories of documents with sufficient particularity that government employees will be able to understand exactly what they are looking for, and then make a prompt production.” See Jaideep Chawla v. Dept. of Revenue, Suffolk Sup. No. 1784CV02087, at 2 (January 23, 2019). This office encourages the requestor and the City to communicate to facilitate providing records more efficiently and affordably. The requestor may wish to narrow their request. The City must use its knowledge of the records to facilitate providing any responsive records. 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). Conclusion If outstanding issues remain after the requestor and the City communicate further as described above, the requestor may appeal the substantive nature of the City’s response within ninety (90) days. See 950 C.M.R. 32.08(1). Sincerely, Manza Arthur Supervisor of Records cc: Commonwealth Transparency