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HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-14-2009 Questions on Confidentialityr Andrea Lorenzo-luaces From: Kate Latorre [klatorre@orlandolaw.net] Sent: Monday, September 14, 2009 3:28 PM To: Joan Brown Cc: Andrea Lorenzo-luaces Subject: RE: Questions on Confidentiality Joan, I've reviewed your questions posed below as well as the City's Public Records Policy set forth in Resolution 2007- 25 and provide the following -- 1. Providing a Confidentiality List to the individual City departments isn't necessarily a bad idea; however, because the City Clerk is ultimately responsible for managing and coordinating all public records requests submitted to the City, the City Clerk's office may, at the very least, desire to double-check any confidentiality/exemption issues with the List prior to records being disclosed or made available for inspection. It may save the City Clerk's office time in the first place to have the various departments check for exemptions, but you lose a certain amount of control or assurance that the exemptions have been properly checked and applied. I would suggest that all formal public records requests continue to be processed though the City Clerk's office with the Clerk's office checking for exemptions. You can still provide the Confidentiality List to the departments if you so desire. + The City's Public Record Policy, however, still needs to be observed and public records requests processed and mans ed primarily by the City Clerk's office. You don't want the various City departments unilaterally handling requests and g disclosing public records containing exempt information. 2. Same analysis -- you can have the departments check for exemptions prior to submitting agenda items, but the City Clerk's office is still the party responsible for ensuring that exempt information is not disclosed when the agenda is posted for the public to access. 3. Statutory exemptions for public records apply to the copying and inspection of public records. Thus, if an exemption exists, the exempt information should not be available to inspector copy. So, based off of the scope of individual public records requests, the records will need to be reviewed for exemptions prior to being produced for an inspection. If the requestor is reviewing archived records -- I'm assuming you mean on the Laser Fiche -- then I would think that any exempt information should already be redacted, yes? hope this information helps. I understand this can be a tedious task. Centralizing the responsibility with the office of the City Clerk is likely still the best way to handle the task of ensuring that property exemptions are observed and applied. Kate From: Joan Brown[mailto:jbrown@winterspringsfl.org] Sent: Friday, August 14, 2009 8:08 AM To: Kate Latorre Cc: Andrea Lorenzo-luaces Subject: Questions on Confidentiality Kate; Re: Confidentiality We will be sending a reminder to the Department Directors regarding Resolution 2007-25 and thought of some questions that might come up. They are; 1). Would it be advisable to have each of the Department's Designated Custodians (usually there are two in each Department) to keep a Confidentiality List and be responsible for the documents that they send out to the Public? For example, Community Development will forward a name and address of someone who is requesting their Building Plans, i r Permits, Certificate of Occupancy, etc. and the City Clerk's office checks the address and if it is not Exempt; we then forward to Community Development that there are no Exemptions for this address. Community Development will find the documents and perhaps place on a CD or paper copy and sends on to the Requestor without telling us what is on the documents, but we're concerned that perhaps in those documents there are other documents they give a Requestor which might in fact be exempt. What is the limitation and should the individual Department (or Designated Custodian) be responsible to make sure there are no Exemptions? 2)Another situation is every single Agenda Item from every Department for each Agenda Packet is checked by the City Clerk's Office to make sure there are is no information that should be redacted based on our Confidentiality List as up until now, the Confidentiality List is only provided to the individuals who update Munis, Kiva and LaserFiche, so we do it for all the departments which is a huge strain on us. 3). If we have a Requestor that comes in to review Public Record documents, does the City Clerk's office have to review the documents first before it is seen by the Requestor? For example, If the Requestor reviews archived documents and there are addresses, etc., the Requestor could write down an address of someone who is now Exempt. Please advise at your earliest convenience. Thanks. �,Um Y. Deputy City Clerk City of Winter Springs 1126 East State Road 434 Winter Springs, Florida 32708 Telephone: 407-327-5999 or 407-327-1800 ext. 237 Facsimile: 407-327-4753 e-mail: ibrown awinterspringsfl.org Confidentiality Note: This e-mail, and any attachment Ito it, contains information intended only for the use of the individual(s) or entity named or) the e mail. If the � reader of this e-rnail is not the intended recipient, or the employee or agent responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient: you are hereby notified that reading it is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please immediately return it to the sender and delete it from your system. Thank you.