City of Dickinson
AGO 2019-O-6
No. 2019-O-06
North Dakota Attorney General Opinion
April 11, 2019
ISSUED
TO: City of Dickinson
OPEN RECORDS AND MEETINGS OPINION
CITIZEN’S
REQUEST FOR OPINION
This
office received a request for an opinion under N.D.C.C.
§ 44-04-21.1 from Nick Thornton asking whether the City
of Dickinson violated N.D.C.C. § 44-04-18 by failing to
respond to a records request within a reasonable time.
FACTS
PRESENTED
On
September 20, 2018, Mr. Thornton sent a records request for
the personnel file of a police officer to the Dickinson
Police Department’s Records Supervisor.[1] The request
was forwarded to the City of Dickinson’s Human
Resources (HR) Department Coordinator, who began scanning
some of the records responsive to the request that same
day.[2]
The HR Coordinator did not work on the request again until
September 28, 2018.[3] During the intervening time, the HR
Coordinator had other workload and responsibilities, and was
out of the office at a conference for a few days. There was
no communication with the requestor until September 28, 2018,
and then only after the requestor asked for a status
update.[4] The HR Coordinator asked for help
from her assistant on October 1, 2018.[5] The HR Department
finished scanning, reviewing and redacting the records on
October 3, 2018.[6] The records were then forwarded to
the City Attorney who provided a cost estimate to the
requestor on October 5, 2018, and thereafter spent over
seventeen hours the next two weeks reviewing the redactions
made by HR staff.[7] The City Attorney provided status
updates to the requestor during this time.[8] The City ultimately
provided 163 pages of records and 80 minutes of video
recording to Mr. Thornton between October 9 and October 18,
2018.[9]
ISSUE
Whether
the City of Dickinson responded to a request for records
within a reasonable time.
ANALYSIS
“Except
as otherwise specifically provided by law, all records of a
public entity are public records, open and accessible for
inspection during reasonable office hours.”[10] When a
public entity receives a request for records, it must, within
a reasonable time, either provide the records or explain why
the...
