Desautel Browning Law Files Public Records Complaints
On behalf of North Kingstown against Narragansett Bay Commission and Quonset Development Corporation Desautel Browning Law has filed two complaints with the Rhode Island Office of the Attorney General’s Open Government Unit, alleging that the Narragansett Bay Commission and the Quonset Development Corporation failed to comply with the state Access to Public Records Act. The firm filed the complaints Aug. 25 on behalf of its client, the Town of North Kingstown. The complaints arise from public records requests the Town submitted May 18 seeking records concerning the proposed QSS Biosolids project and related biosolids, sludge-processing, pyrolysis and waste management operations. Both public bodies invoked a 20-business-day extension to May 28 on the ground that the requests were voluminous. Along with its extension, the Narragansett Bay Commission demanded $2,287.50 in advance and took the position that its response period was tolled until the
Town paid. In explaining that figure, the Commission said responding would require about 752.5 hours of search and retrieval time – more than 18 forty-hour workweeks for a single records request – and that the prepayment represented roughly 20% of a projected cost exceeding $11,000. In an Aug. 13 response, the Commission disclosed that it had consulted its information security manager to develop a computerized search method and that well over 35 hours went into writing code and scripts. The Commission takes the position that those programming hours are compensable search-and-retrieval time under the act. The firm’s complaint asks the Rhode Island Attorney General to determine whether time spent developing computer code, scripts and electronic search methodology is properly chargeable to a requester, and whether the Commission adequately established that the programming was necessary. The complaint notes that related records requests to other governmental entities produced responsive records without any claim
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