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From: Joe Edwards
Date: 2/21/98
Time: 6:20:56 PM
Remote Name: 38.217.62.132
I think the state can ill afford to gratuitiously incur non-trivial expense in satisfying open records requests, and a "cost-based" fee is appropriate - the questions will arise when the costs of inputting the info a single time into the searchable medium is sought to be allocated among subsequent applicants - depending on the volume of requests, the costs will likely be recovered very quickly for "juicy" stuff (like, probably, Zamora stuff down the road) and much more slowly (if ever) for "dull" stuff no one ever looks up - I'd hate to see the process weighted too heavily towards being sure the state recoups all costs, because that will likely result in the fee being a profit center (and the state shd not really be in the business of "selling" public information). Also, as a practical matter, I don't see how you could charge different rates for public/litigants than for attys/businesses - most atty searches wd likely be for the benefit of litigants anyway, and businesses wd soon try to get into "reselling" the info as a service