Cocoa City Council passes record rules change that critics say could chill public access
Cocoa's City Council on Tuesday changed its rules governing fees for public records requests, a moved that some worry could chill public access to government information and be used to retaliate against citizen watchdogs.
The city manager said it will put the onus of paying for extensive records requests on frequent requestors rather than city staff and by extension Cocoa taxpayers.
The changes passed Tuesday night in a 4-1 vote were "more like clarifications and updates" rather than brand new policies, according to city manager Stockton Whitten's comments Tuesday.
"The city attorney did most of those changes and the other substantive changes were recommended by" the city clerk, according to Whitten. Both were fully apprised of the law and public policy best practices when putting forward the ordinance.
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Kristin Lortie, who runs the citizen watchdog group Cocoa Cares, said she felt the city was looking for ways to charge more for records requests and discourage citizens from seeking information about the goings on inside city hall.
"I believe that the proposed policy changes will have the effect of deterring future information requests from citizens that wish to be informed," Lortie said in a written statement.
"Knowing that the city is strengthening its charging language, rather than making information more easily accessible to the public, is alarming for citizens like myself that attend city meetings, inform ourselves on city business, and share relevant updates with other residents."
According to a resolution passed by City Council Tuesday, the rules concerning records requests will include:
Charging for cumulative requests over a 30-day period
Charging for confirming a record's existence and locating it
Withholding fulfillment to requestors who have unpaid invoices from previous requests
Mandatory payment in advance for large requests and for requestors who "have failed to make payment" for previous requests
Possible charges even when a search finds records do not exist
Whitten said that many of these rules were already being practiced by the city clerk but were not codified into city's laws, .
"There is not an intent to cost anyone additional dollars or to expand the clock there. The intent there isn't to circumvent anyone's right to public records," he added. "The general public shouldn't pay for the expenses of individuals with extended requests."
Councilman Alex Goins, who voted for the ordinance, said he believed Cocoa's records policies were not drastically different from anything else enacted by other municipalities in the county.
"We are pretty much in step with the cities around us," he said in support of the ordinance.
But Councilwoman Lorraine Koss, who was the sole vote against the policy update said she was concerned the new rules would be used as "roadblocks" to information citizens need to be informed.
Koss described an experience when she was "harassed" with Freedom of Information Act requests by one person. "They even asked for my GPS coordinates and thank you so much for not providing those. I am very sensitive to being harassed by FOIA requests," Koss said.
But she said that even with that experience, she is against certain aspects of the newly clarified policy, specifically the issue with cumulative requests over a 30-day period.
"The spirit of the Florida laws is that everything that we generate is paid for by taxpayers and should be available to them without penalty and this could potentially be a roadblock to that," Koss said.
"I don't think we can say that we believe in transparency and pass elements of what's here," she added. "I object to the part of this that deals with the cumulative requests and how they will be determined because this is really putting up roadblocks to do that, whether it's media or citizen watchdogs."
The newly codified charges for cumulative requests worrying Koss could affect those making multiple records request within a 30-day period.
Individual requests that takes less than 15 minutes to fulfill by city staff would remain free.
But the new rule change could give the city clerk more leeway in determining if multiple requests that may be related to each might all count as one single request — if those requests are made within a 30-day period.
Koss expressed worry that the policy could end up seeing citizens concerned about the workings of city government being charged for records that would have previously been free.
Tyler Vazquez is the North Brevard Watchdog Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Vazquez at 321-917-7491 or tvazquez@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @tyler_vazquez
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This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Cocoa passes records request rules change
