Lewis County Adopts New Public Records Request Policy

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Lewis County now has a new public records request policy after the Board of Lewis County Commissioners approved a resolution following a public hearing held on Monday.

The previous policy was established in 2008. The updated version incorporates the state’s fee schedule for public disclosure requests and also establishes a protocol to work through multiple requests from the same individual.

“The whole purpose is to provide for transparency in government activities,” Ross Petersen, with the Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office, said.

According to the new policy, the county will “under no circumstances…. work simultaneously on more than one request per requestor at a time.”

In the past, county officials have stated several frequent requestors have sent numerous requests per day. According to previous statements from county employees, some of those requests are never opened by the individuals once they are fulfilled. The move aims to address some of those issues.



In the past, commissioners have lamented the dozens of requests filed by Brian Green and Brian Cortland, two men with a history of making large, blanket requests for county documents. 

Instead, the requests will now be designated as a “multiple requestor queue” and worked through one at a time.

The policy allows the county to charge 15 cents for each paper copy, 10 cents for scanned pages in electronic format, 5 cents for a page delivered through email, and 10 cents per gigabyte for electronic records transmission. The county can also charge the actual cost for any storage media, container, envelope, postage or delivery charge. 

The state Legislature passed a law allowing for the collection of fees for electronic documents in early 2017. A mandatory 10 percent deposit for copies or scans of records has also been implemented.