Records fee proposal goes back to drawing board

City Council Resolution 1865, which would establish a fee for research and duplication of city records, was sent back to the ordinance committee for review during Monday’s meeting of the Libby City Council.

The resolution, drafted by city attorney Allan Payne following a verbal request from Mayor Doug Roll, has been on and off the Council’s agenda since Jan. 19. In the March 2 meeting of the City Council, Roll acknowledged his motivation for the resolution was a request for documents filed by The Western News.

The resolution has been modified from the original draft provided by the city attorney. The first changes took place during an ordinance committee meeting Feb. 17, in which a provision requiring requests to be filed on a specific form provided by the city was stricken. That provision is a violation of Montana law, according to Mike Meloy, an attorney with the Montana Freedom of Information Hotline.

Another provision, which stipulated, “If the City does not respond to a request within one year, it is deemed denied,” was also stricken from the proposal at the request of Councilman Bill Bischoff, who argued the city should not leave requests unanswered for a year.

Councilman Brent Teske, who serves on the ordinance committee, expressed his concerns with the resolution at both the March 2 Council meeting and the Feb. 25 committee meeting. Teske said the resolution as presented to the Council is just too vague.

“It doesn’t say who it applies to, who is exempt and who makes the final decision about what records are public and private,” he said.

Due to those objections, Teske was tasked by the committee to review similar measures in other municipalities. He was surprised to see the resolution back on the Council’s agenda before having a chance to present his suggestions to the committee.

“I didn’t have a clue it was going to be on the agenda Monday,” he said.

City Clerk/Treasurer Glena Hook, who prepares the agenda, said she sent it out to council members the Thursday prior to the meeting. While unable to recall exactly how the resolution ended up on the agenda, she said she believed “the committee was ready for it to come forward.”

Hook also said Mayor Roll told her he would check with Councilwoman Peggy Williams, who chairs the ordinance committee.

Roll said he put the resolution back on the agenda, because he thought the extra clarifications included in the Bozeman ordinance were superfluous. “I set the agenda,” Roll said. “I talked to Peggy about it and she said it was fine.”

Williams said she did not request the resolution be added to the agenda. “I did not make that request,” she said.

Teske said he doesn’t understand the urgency Roll is showing in moving the resolution through the Council.

“I understand the need for it, but I don’t understand the urgency. I don’t understand the point in passing an incomplete resolution that we’re going to have to fix later. I just don’t get it,” he said.

Teske is reviewing similar ordinances in place in cities such as Bozeman and Columbia Falls. He hopes to use those measures as a template from which the city attorney can structure a more comprehensive resolution.

His plan is to cut and paste the parts of other cities’ plans he feels would make the best sense for Libby and relay those to Payne. From there, he said, the committee should review the proposal and determine whether or not to send it up to the full Council for passage.

Teske was unsure of how much time the process would require, indicating that a great deal of it would be determined by the workload of the city attorney after the committee finishes their initial work on the resolution.

“I hope we don’t see it on the next agenda, but I didn’t place it on the last one,” Teske said.

The next meeting of the ordinance committee has not yet been scheduled.