N.J. Mayor Proposes Limit to Requests Under Open Public Records Act

Longport Mayor Nicholas Russo is at his wits' end after his town put up a costly fight staving off a resident who filed excessive records requests to simply "bust chops."

Russo has proposed amending the state's Open Public Records Act, which provides guidelines for interaction between the public requesting government information and the agencies that provide it. Under his proposal, there would be a limit on the number of requests individuals and private agencies could make during a certain time.

Open government advocates have cringed at the idea of putting any type of restriction on records requesters. The current law, some say, already offers solutions for records requests that pose to substantially disrupt operations in towns, big and small.

Moreover, advocates say municipalities that put off investment in e-governance technology — such as providing a searchable electronic database of government documents on the Web — do more to hurt taxpayers than help them.

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Public Record Request Denied? Don't Give Up!

When the answer to your public records request is no, what do you do next?

Several readers who requested information that should be public have written to say their requests were denied. That happens more frequently than you might suspect.

Read the full story here.

Sherrif's Request for Public Records to Cost Taxpayers $1 M.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio is spending close to $1 million in taxpayer money on what some say are calling a political witch hunt, according to Maricopa County’s Litigation Director.

“What we've heard from people is that they think it's about intimidation, they think it's just harassment, they think it's a fishing expedition,” Wade Swanson said.

The sheriff submitted a public records request Jan. 30 asking for every e-mail, calendar and phone record for 36 county employees.

The county budget office estimates gathering and reviewing the approximately 500,000 documents will cost taxpayers $911,157.

The county is legally obligated to fulfill the request.

Read more here.