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Professionals
Serial FOAA Requests Swamp Officials, Staffs
10.26.2011
by Eric Conrad, Director of Communication & Educational Services, MMA
Nathan Poore went through it in Falmouth, as did Jay Feyler in Union. Dana Lee, the former Town Manager in Poland, dealt with it too. He found the experience so disturbing it was part of the reason why he resigned last spring.
In at least 20 communities across the state, citizens suspicious about municipal government have swamped town and city officials with Freedom of Access Act demands – commonly known as "Right to Know" requests – that officials say disrupt operations and demoralize staff.
In many cases, the people behind the requests don't know specifically what they are seeking, so they query all kinds of records – typically emails, but also financial data, databases, minutes and other items.
But it's not the vagueness of the requests that municipal officials find tiresome. It's the volume.
Feyler, Town Manager in Union, said a small group of citizens in his town filed 75 FOAA requests over a 12-month period. Poore, Town Manager in Falmouth, said one citizen filed "close to 100" FOAA requests last year.
Some of the managers who feel besieged today were fine with FOAA requests prior to the recent deluges. The managers expected municipal employees to respond quickly and courteously.
Today, they feel differently and, in many cases, they have developed formal processes for receiving requests, responding to them and documenting which records were released and on what date.
"Before this, my customary application was in the customer-service arena," said Poore. "Someone comes in, they want a copy of a document, you give it to them."
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