LaPlume, Andre v. Haverhill, City of - City Clerk (SPR 20261019)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Public Records Division Manza Arthur Supervisor of Records March 31, 2026 SPR26/1019 Alexander M. Castro, Esq. City Solicitor City of Haverhill 4 Summer Street, City Hall, Room 118 Haverhill, MA 01830 Dear Attorney Castro: I have received the petition of Andre LaPlume appealing the response of the City of Haverhill (City) to a request for public records. See G. L. c. 66, § 10A; see also 950 C.M.R. 32.08(1). On January 12, 2026, Mr. LaPlume requested: All invoices/billing statements issued by Mead, Talerman, & Costa, LLC that are dated in calendar year 2025 (January 1, 2025 through January 12, 2026), including any attachments or supporting billing detail that accompanied those invoices as maintained by the City. On February 19, 2026, Mr. LaPlume modified his request as follows: …I would like to reduce the scope of the request given how voluminous it appears the redaction time will be. Please let’s limit the request to September 1, 2025- December 31, 2025. Prior Petition This request was the subject of a previous fee petition. See SPR26/0259 Determination of the Supervisor of Records (February 2, 2026). In my February 2nd determination, I found the City may assess a fee limited to $75.00 per hour for attorney review. The City responded on February 26, 2026, providing a fee estimate. Unsatisfied with the City’s response, Mr. LaPlume petitioned this office and this appeal, SPR26/1019, 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

Alexander M. Castro, Esq. SPR26/1019 Page 2 March 31, 2026 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 ($.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). The City’s February 26th Fee Estimate In its February 26, 2026 fee estimate, the City provided a fee estimate for $225.00 and stated: On or about January 27, 2026, the City submitted a fee petition to the Supervisor of Records (the “Supervisor”) requesting that she permit the City to charge a fee of $225 per hour to provide you with the responsive records because they include descriptions of legal services that disclose (1) the confidential communications between the City and its legal counsel undertaken for the purpose of obtaining legal advice or assistance; (2) attorney opinion work product sought in anticipation of or during the pendency of litigation; and/or (3) certain attorney fact work product under Mass. R. Civ. P.26(b)(3) that was prepared in anticipation of litigation or trial, and, as such must be withheld and/or redacted accordingly by City Solicitor Mead, Talerman & Costa, LLC, who the City has retained at the foregoing hourly rate. See G. L. c. 4, § 7(26)(a) and (d); Suffolk Constr. Co. v. Div. of Capital Asset Mgmt., 449 Mass. 444, 449-50 (2007); DaRosa v. City of New Bedford, 471 Mass. 446, 459 (2015). On or about February 3, 2026, the Supervisor granted the City’s petition, in pertinent part, as follows: “the City may assess a fee limited to $75.00 per hour for attorney review… [less] the first two hours of work performed.” …

Alexander M. Castro, Esq. SPR26/1019 Page 3 March 31, 2026 Per the Supervisor’s order, the lowest paid City employee capable of searching for, compiling, segregating, redacting, and/or reproducing the responsive records is City Solicitor Mead, Talerman & Costa, LLC, who may be paid at a rate of $75.00 per hour. The City’s good-faith estimate of the time required to comply with your revised request is five hours, which includes the City Solicitor searching for, compiling, reviewing, segregating, redacting, and/or reproducing the responsive records. At the cost of $75.00 per hour, less two hours, this amounts to $225.00. Current Appeal In his appeal petition, Mr. LaPlume objected to the City’s fee estimates, stating the following: I do not dispute that some portions of attorney billing records may require legal review and redaction to protect attorney-client privileged communications or protected work product. Massachusetts law recognizes those protections. … The City’s own letter shows the problem. It states that the Supervisor previously granted a petition allowing the City to assess a fee limited to “$75.00 per hour for attorney review… [less] the first two hours of work performed.” But the City’s revised estimate goes further: it charges that same attorney rate for “searching for, compiling, reviewing, segregating, redacting, and/or reproducing” the records. Those are not the same thing. On the City’s own description of the prior ruling, the authorization was for attorney review, not for all clerical, custodial, and reproduction functions. … … the City has not shown why a lawyer is the lowest-paid person with the necessary skill to do all of the following: search for invoices, collect them, compile them, and reproduce them. … … the City provides only a lump assertion of five hours. It does not identify the approximate number of responsive invoices, the approximate page count, the number of attachments, the estimated time for non-legal retrieval versus legal review, or why any non-review tasks cannot be completed by lower-paid staff. … The City’s estimate is especially questionable because the request was already narrowed to a short date range—September 1 through December 31, 2025— specifically to reduce the burden of redaction. For only a few months of invoices, a five-hour estimate by the allegedly sole qualified professional is facially high absent a concrete breakdown. Although the City has estimated that it will take 5 hours to produce responsive records, it is not clear from the City’s estimate how much time is allocated to search, and how much time is

Alexander M. Castro, Esq. SPR26/1019 Page 4 March 31, 2026 allocated for segregation and/or redaction of the records. Additionally, it is unclear the number of minutes that the City must spend per page to segregate or redact the responsive records. The City must provide additional information regarding the tasks involved in producing these records. Accordingly, the City must provide further details regarding its fee estimate. See G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv) (requiring the amount of the fee be reasonable). This office encourages Mr. LaPlume and the City to communicate 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). Conclusion Accordingly, the City is ordered to provide Mr. LaPlume with a response to the request, provided in a manner consistent with this order, the Public Records Law and its Regulations within ten (10) 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. LaPlume may further 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: Andre LaPlume