Records request fee in question

COEUR d'ALENE - Urban renewal watchdog Dan Gookin doesn't believe he should have to pay to view public records.

So long as the agency doesn't have to make copies, Gookin says, the records should be open to the public, free of charge.

But Lake City Development Corp. wants $58.10 from Gookin to view the agency's check registry dating back to 2003, which Gookin requested in February under the Idaho Public Records Act.

On Thursday, the urban renewal agency presented Gookin the bill, since the two had an agreement to meet to view those documents. Gookin refused to pay and left the meeting without catching a glimpse of the registers.

"I believe that is intimidation," Gookin said.

Not so, the urban renewal agency said - it's just the law.

That leaves the two sides split on the legal language about viewing public documents and more specifically, about the time it takes for agencies to dig up the requested paperwork.

Idaho Code 9-338 states: "The actual cost shall not include any administrative or labor costs resulting from locating and providing a copy of the public record." Idaho Code 9-338 (8) says a citizen can be charged "a fee to recover the actual labor cost associated with locating and copying documents if ... the actual labor associated with locating and copying documents for a request exceeds two (2) person hours."

LCDC Executive Director Tony Berns said he spent more than three hours locating and compiling the roughly 150 pages of check registries from storage. Because state law indicates no charge for the first two hours, LCDC's legal counsel, Ryan Armbruster in Boise and Danielle Quade in Coeur d'Alene, directed Berns to charge for the additional hour the search required. The $58.10 represents one hour of Berns' pay.

It's not an attempt to frustrate records requests, Berns said, just applying the letter of the law.

"LCDC is very willing to fulfill Mr. Gookin's request, he just needs to compensate the LCDC for LCDC staff time associated with fulfilling his extensive request," Berns said.

Berns added that he has fielded dozens of records requests which took under two hours and for which the agency didn't charge, but is obliged to charge for requests with "voluminous" amounts of documents, like Gookin's.

LCDC also charged the Attorney General's office for a voluminous request last year, and the Attorney General's office paid in full, he said.

"The AG supports that interpretation," Quade said Thursday. "I don't think there's any gray area."

But Gookin maintains the charging clause only counts if both conditions are being met, pointing to the word "and" in the legal language.

Agencies can charge for labor associated with locating documents only if they're copied at the request of the citizen, Gookin said. Since only the locating condition was met - and not the copying - the rule doesn't apply.

"The laws all have intent, they all have meaning," Gookin said about the legal language.

He said the charge is frustrating because other Idaho urban renewal agencies are posting their registries online. He said he didn't expect to find anything substantial in the registries, but thought the bill was a personal roadblock against him, and that not everyone would have received a similar charge.

Gookin made the request after Caldwell's urban renewal agency turned over its check registry on a records request and subsequently is facing investigation by the Attorney General's office on possible inappropriate charges, according to the Associated Press.

Gookin said late Thursday that he hasn't decided if he'll pursue the issue in court.