GREENFIELD — County tourism officials say a large public information request received by the visitors center in late July will burden its single paid employee.
The Hancock County Tourism Commission was notified July 26 that Hancock County resident Michael Thompson was requesting an extensive amount of financial information from the years 2012 through 2017. Tourism director Brigette Cook Jones, the Hancock County Visitors Center’s sole paid employee, told the tourism commission the broad request is so extensive, it will take her several months to find all the information and make digital or paper copies.
“It’s a huge amount of information,” she told the tourism commission members during the August meeting. “It’s not specific, it’s just everything regarding the (Hancock County Visitors Bureau).”
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The tourism commission and the nonprofit visitors bureau have worked closely together since the commission’s creation in 2011.
Jones’ position of tourism director in 2016 restructured the relationship between the two entities, a move made in hopes of improving the relationship between the county’s tourism leaders and local hotel owners, whose innkeeper’s taxes fund tourism efforts, said Brad Armstrong, president of the Hancock County Board of Commissioners, in 2016, according to Daily Reporter archives.
The position also heralded a change to how the Innkeepers Tax funding was split between the bureau and commission, eventually transferring the duty of disbursal of grant funding from the Innkeepers Tax from the bureau to the commission in 2017.
Jones said the request will require her to go back and download hundreds of emails between herself and visitors bureau members as well, to convert them into PDFs for Thompson’s perusal.
The commission’s legal counsel, attorney Kevin Harvey, said Jones made a response to the request within 24 hours as required by state statute, saying she would do her best to produce the documents in a timely manner.
He said to his knowledge, this is the first time the commission has received a public records request of such a broad scope.
Thompson said he is not looking for anything in particular with his request, simply seeking to hold the county government accountable.
“As I learn more, I will need to narrow it down,” he said. “It could be a big waste of time.”
Thompson acknowledged the scope of his request could overload the visitors center, but suggested making digital copies could be less time-consuming than making printed copies.
Harvey said the law doesn’t allow government bodies to deny a public records request based on the requester’s motive.
“To the extent that we can identify what he is requesting, and it’s a non-privileged public records, we have to comply,” he said. “It is unfortunate there is no meaningful purpose for the request, because it unduly burdens the commission from what it’s supposed to be doing.”
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The Indiana Access to Public Records Act is a series of laws designed to guarantee that the public has access to public records of government bodies at all levels. Public records are defined as essentially any information created, maintained or filed by government agencies. Exemptions include trade secrets, confidential information received upon request, academic research, licensing information, medical records, anything declared exempt by the Supreme Court, autopsy photos or videos, social security numbers, law enforcement investigations, attorney information, personal files of employees, names of charitable donors, security measures for telecommunications, schools, and general infrastructure, correctional officer information, complaint information within law enforcement agencies, contact information for utility employees, or labor negotiations.
Any person can request public records in Indiana and no request may be refused due to a lack of statement of purpose. Record cannot be used for commercial purposes except if it is news publications, academic research, or non-profit organization activities that are using the information. The Indiana statute allows for seven days to acknowledge Indiana Access to Public Records Act requests if the request is mailed or sent by facsimilie or email. “If a requestor is physically present in the office of the public agency or makes a request by telephone or requests enhanced access to a document, the public agency must respond to the request within 24 hours after any employee of the agency receives the request.”
Source: National Freedom of Information Coalition, nfoic.org
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On July 26, the Hancock County Tourism Commission and visitors bureau received a public records request seeking the following:
- Copies of any and all grants, written contracts, service agreements or special provisions awarded to the Hancock County Visitors Bureau
- Financial documents tracking spending of the revenue of the county’s Innkeepers Tax and how it was split between the tourism commission, a county entity, and the visitors bureau, a 501c3 nonprofit organization
- Copies of any contracts, instructions, agreements or minutes of meetings covering use of funds, reporting of expenditures, provisions for providing the tourism commission with copies of vendor invoices as proof that funds were used for intended purposes, and end-of-year financial reporting requirements for not-for-profit organizations
- Copies of any and all financial reports for the years 2012 through 2017
- Copies of all 60-day completed project reports and all other related documents, including copies of all supporting documents such as receipts, canceled checks, tickets, invoices, bills, contracts and other public records submitted as documentation on how awarded funds were used for application for grants awarded during 2012 through 2017
- Copies of any correspondence between Hancock County officials and Tourism Commission (and members) related to the Hancock County Visitors Bureau, including written correspondence, emails, telecommunications and any communication regardless of means
- Copies of any canceled checks or payments made by the Tourism Commission for intended use by this group, whether issued directly to this group or to another group for “pass through” for eventual use by this group
- Copies of all documentation considered in certifying or otherwise documenting that the requesting organization was an eligible Indiana Not for Profit Corporation in good standing with the Indiana Secretary of State to receive grant funds from the Tourism Commission.
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