Commentary: Production of Public Records Not An Enterprise Fund

From the Rio Grande Sun - Commentary by R. Braiden Trapp - The more things change the more they stay the same. So said French novelist Alphonse Karr. That’s the situation with the never-ending fight for public access to public records in the state of New Mexico and more specifically in Rio Arriba County. The most recent change was the passage of an addition to the Inspection of Public Records Act, which went into effect July 1 and was heralded by sunshine activists and those of us in the trenches as a great movement forward. Forward, as in progress toward more access. County elections bureau chief Michelle Jordan sees it differently and would like to keep things the same, even as they change. The new law states public records custodians must turn over public records in electronic form when available. At the same time a law went into effect parallel to the Act that can be interpreted to mean, or construed, the County Clerk can charge for the actual cost of searching for and sending these records. In an effort to turn records request fulfillments into a revenue stream, Jordan has decided she’ll charge an outrageous amount for providing electronic records and even more asinine is charging the public for sending an e-mail or to take a photo of a document. Read more

Commentary: Production of Public Records Not An Enterprise Fund