From Jim Atkinson, Lakeland city manager:
“The Board of Commissioners (BOC) is expected to adopt the State’s open records model policy at its meeting tonight, March 8.
“The amendment was discussed at the work session on March 1, and placed on the consent agenda for action tonight. The changes from the City’s existing policy are minor, primarily adding a provision from state law that allows city staff to aggregate similar requests. This change does not affect the number or type of records available to the public, rather lessens the impact on city staff and city operations while compiling records for review within state-mandated timeframes. While minor in nature, the policy amendment may prolong the need for additional staffing to respond to records requests.
“The City has seen a significant increase in records requests in 2018. While many of the requests are simply ‘inspection’ requests, the city is mandated by the state to redact any sensitive information contained in the records, such as social security numbers, personal medical information, etc. This requires inspection of each individual document, and then redaction if necessary. Active inspection requests currently exceed 14,000 documents.
“City staff is in constant contact with the State’s Open Records Counsel to ensure that all laws governing records requests are followed.”
The BOC meets at 5:30 at City Hall. Link to agenda: https://tn-lakeland.civicplus.com/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/751
