Toledo City Council members approved an ordinance amending city code concerning public records requests as they met on Monday, May 4, for their first regular meeting of the month at Toledo City Hall.
While Toledo City Councilor Jillian Niles was excused from the meeting, a quorum was present.
Additionally, councilors also agreed to hold a public workshop beginning at 4 p.m. on May 18 before their next regular meeting to discuss a new volunteer policy which was approved last month, as previously reported by The Chronicle.
The volunteer policy — Resolution 346 — was brought forward after recommendations from both the city’s insurance company and attorney to establish guidelines for approving and managing volunteers and the work they do for the city to avoid liability issues. Toledo City Councilor Jamie Scalise was the lone opposition.
She understood the city faced liability issues without established volunteer guidelines for managing volunteers, but wanted to give local volunteers a chance to suggest possible improvements to the guidelines. The May 18 workshop is meant to give volunteers the opportunity to suggest possible amendments.
As for the public records request change, Ordinance 839, Toledo City Clerk-Treasurer Rachel Campbell explained the ordinance removed the requirement for city staff to maintain an index of all records in every city department.
While the Washington state Public Records Act (PRA) dictates that indexes must be maintained, it also stipulates a “local agency need not maintain such an index, if to do so would be unduly burdensome.”
According to Campbell, public records requests have been submitted requesting to see the City of Toledo’s full index, with the requestors hoping to find missing information in the index — which they could sue the city for, claiming their public requests were not properly fulfilled.
“They’re weaponizing public records requests. They’re coming in and looking for lawsuits and they’re saying, ‘I want an index of all of your files,’” Campbell said. “So what happened was, our old public records (policy) did state we did have an index of all of our files, which nobody carries anymore.”
Maintaining the city-wide index is also costly, in terms of both money and city staff time. She added individual indexes related specifically to things like annexations, proclamations, ordinances and resolutions are still being maintained.
Councilors approved Ordinance 839 unanimously.
The full text of Ordinance 839 can be found starting on page 10 of the Toledo City Council’s May 4 meeting agenda packet available on the city’s website at https://tinyurl.com/y6kxvshr.
