Transparency, Commonwealth v. Malden Public Library (SPR 20261213)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Public Records Division Manza Arthur Supervisor of Records April 17, 2026 SPR26/1213 Dora St. Martin Assigned Department Records Administrator Public Library Department City of Malden 215 Pleasant Street Malden, MA 02148 Dear Ms. St. Martin: I have received the petition of Commonwealth Transparency (requestor) appealing the response of the Malden Public Library (Library) to a request for public records. See G. L. c. 66, § 10A; see also 950 C.M.R. 32.08(1). On March 19, 2026, the requestor sought the following: [A]ny documents/records in the possession or under the control of your town/city/municipality for the tax year 2025: Please provide a listing of all artwork(s), antiquitie(s), or other things of value in excess of $1000 that have been sold, transferred or otherwise disposed of where the source/origin/custody of the artwork(s), antiquitie(s), or other things of value in excess of $1000 was the Malden Public Library from January 1, 2000 through March 19, 2026. The Library responded on April 2, 2026. Unsatisfied with the Library’s response, the requestor petitioned this office, and this appeal, SPR26/1213, 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). 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

Dora St. Martin SPR26/1213 Page 2 April 17, 2026 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 Library’s April 2nd Response In its April 2, 2026 response, the Library states that it does not possess records responsive to the request, and also provided the following explanation: Without waiving any of the foregoing regarding your correspondence, please note that there are no responsive records. If you are seeking publicly-available information, please note that the annual report of the library from 2013-[2025] are available online for viewing at [a specified website]; and annual reports of City regarding the Library’s public funding are available for viewing [at another specified website] and non-profit corporate filings publicly available online [at another specified website] with AG Account Number 033941. Additionally, in its April 2nd response, the Library states the following: As an initial matter, the Board is a private corporation and is accordingly not subject to the Public Records Law. Public records requests extend only to those records that are in existence and in the custody, possession, or control of a public entity. See Secretary of the Commonwealth, A Guide to the Massachusetts Public Records Law, at 7, 41, 44 (2022). By way of background, the Board of Trustees was established by Chapter 146 of the Acts of 1885 as a corporation known as the Malden Public Library and is a self-perpetuating corporation created by the state legislature to establish and maintain a free public library for the residents of Malden. The Board also serves as a fiduciary to effectuate applicable portions of the will of Elisha Converse. It remains the position of the Board that it is therefore a private corporation, and not a governmental body, and the Board expressly reserves all of its rights in that regard, without any waiver of same. In addition, please be advised that the Board is under no obligation to create records in response to your request and is not required to answer questions in response to a public records request. See Secretary of the Commonwealth, A Guide to the Massachusetts Public Records Law, at 7, 41, 44 (2022). Finally, pursuant to G.L. c. 66, § 10(a)(i) and 950 CMR § 32.06(1)(b), a public

Dora St. Martin SPR26/1213 Page 3 April 17, 2026 records request must also “include a reasonable description of the requested record to the records access officer so that the records can be identified and located promptly.” As noted by the Massachusetts Appeals Court, “[t]he reasonable description requirement is a necessary bulwark of the public records law, as the law ‘was not intended to reduce government agencies to full-time investigators on behalf of [requestors].’” See Friedman v. Division of Admin. Law Appeals, Mass. App. Ct. No. 23-P-369 (March 15, 2024) (citations omitted); see also Chawla v. Dep’t of Revenue, Suffolk. Sup. Ct. Case No. 1784CV02087, at 2 (Jan. 23, 2019) ([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.”). To the extent your request seeks approximately 26 years of records, which in any event are not public records but are records of the private corporation, its staff will not be deputized to conduct research for you in response to such a broad request. Current Appeal In the appeal petition, the requestor argues the following: The response violates the Massachusetts public records laws in the following ways: I. OpenCommonwealth is aware of records in the possession and/or under the control of the Malden Public Library that are responsive to this request, and the Malden Public Library is failing to search for and to provide them. II. The Malden Public Library is subject to the public records law; however, they completely reject this in their response. OpenCommonwealth hereby formally requests that the SPR apply the five-factor test (Creation, Function, Funding, Private interests, and Control and Supervision) to positively determine that the Malden Public Library is a public entity subject to the Massachusetts Public Records Law: III. The Malden Public Library is claiming that OpenCommonwealth requested that they create public records, this is not true, we have asked them and specifically reminded them in our request that extraction of the requested records from a database or electronic record system does not constitute creating a new record. IV. The Malden Public Library has a duty to perform a search for the requested records under the public records law. They are refusing to do so; The Malden Public Library is claiming that the public records request made by OpenCommonwealth is overly broad, apparently because they believe that records going back 26 years somehow comports with the caselaw created under Friedman v. Division of Admin. Law Appeals, Mass. App. Ct. No. 23-P-369, the specific language of this decision specifically refutes the position of the library’s response...

Dora St. Martin SPR26/1213 Page 4 April 17, 2026 V. The Malden Public Library is claiming that no responsive records exist, while at the same time refusing to search for the records; . . . Again, OpenCommonwealth is aware of records in the possession and/or under the control of the Malden Public Library that are responsive to this request, and the Malden Public Library is failing to search for and to provide them. Records in Existence; Possession, Custody, or Control Please be advised that the duty to comply with requests for records extends to those records that exist and are in the possession, custody, or control of the custodian of records at the time of the request. See G. L. c. 66, § 10(a)(ii). Further, under the Public Records Law, a public employee is not required to answer questions, or do research, or create documents in response to questions. See 32 Op. Att’y Gen. 157, 165 (May 18, 1977). However, in accordance with the Public Records Law, custodians are expected to use their superior knowledge of the records in their custody to assist requestors in obtaining the desired information. See 950 C.M.R. 32.04(5). In a telephone conversation with this office on April 15, 2026, an attorney for the Library Board of Trustees confirmed that the Library does not possess additional records that would be responsive to the request. Where the Library has confirmed that it does not possess responsive records, and has assisted the requestor in obtaining the desired information by providing links to publicly available websites, and has no duty to create records in response to a request, I find that the Library has met its burden in responding to this request under the Public Records Law. Conclusion Accordingly, I will consider this administrative appeal closed. If the requestor is not satisfied with the resolution of this administrative appeal, please be advised that this office shares jurisdiction with the Superior Court of the Commonwealth. See G. L. c. 66, §§ 10(b)(ix), 10A(c) (pursuing administrative appeal does not limit availability of judicial remedies). Sincerely, Manza Arthur Supervisor of Records cc: Commonwealth Transparency Janelle M. Austin, Esq.