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State panel advances public records bill
key legislative committee — signaling that lawmakers may be ready to overhaul Massachusetts’ current public records law, considered one of the weakest in the country.
“It’s a fantastic bill and has essentially everything we wanted,” said Pam Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts, a good-government group. “The signs are very good that the reform will get done and done fairly soon. It would be a great step forward for transparency in Massachusetts.”
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/07/16/public-records-reform-push-gains-momentum/NYqZMAae0aLK9OkstuPJOL/story.html
It would also allow officials to ask the secretary of state’s office for authorization to charge citizens for the cost of locating, reviewing, or segregating documents.
The bill defines “exceptional circumstances” as one or both of the following:
■ More than 15 requests from the same person in 30 days — but requests made in the public interest, such as many from the news media, are exempted.
■ A response that is expected to exceed 500 pages and is projected to take more than 20 hours to pull together.
Kocot said the provision is meant to protect town clerks in small communities who are sometimes “barraged with multiple requests over a small period of time.”
Wilmot, of Common Cause, said the addition of the “exceptional circumstances” provision is not a big loophole.
