LISBON — A request to waive a $130 fee for producing town documents was unanimously denied by town councilors Tuesday night.
The request came from Larry Fillmore, a regular attendee of council meetings and one of the authors of a blog called The Lisbon Reporter. The town has a policy of charging $15 when a town employee has to spend more than one hour responding to Freedom of Access Act requests. Commonly known as the Right to Know law, the act spells out the rules for access to government documents and meetings.
Council Chairwoman Lisa Ward asked Fillmore why he thought the fee should be waived.
Fillmore held up what he said was a May 20 memo from interim Town Manager Dale Olmstead to the council.
“I understand your reason for asking for it,” Ward said, adding there was no need to discuss the memo itself. The agenda item was whether or not the council should waive the fee, she said.
Fillmore said he got an email from the town that his FOAA request, which apparently related to the memo, had so far generated 200 pages, “and they said they’re not done yet. I’m concerned that one document has blossomed into 200 pages, so I’m saying what’s going on here?”
Ward pressed for a reason the fee should be waived.
“Because it’s excessive,” Fillmore said. “To have three-and-a-half hours to locate these documents is excessive.”
If it takes four more hours for Town Clerk Twila Lycette to process the information, that’s four more hours the taxpayers are going to pay, rather than the person requesting it, Ward said. “We can’t ask the taxpayers to pay for that,” she said.
Town Attorney Roger Therriault cautioned the council to avoid setting a precedent by waiving the fee.
Responding to FOAA requests can often take time, he said, because “documents are all kept on computers and they have to be found and segregated. The statute simply says it is our responsibility to make the documents available for inspection.” He referred to the documents in question as “very esoteric.”
Councilor Gregg Garrison said, “It might have been cheaper (for Fillmore) to just come to a councilor and ask for information.”
“I can’t support the waiver because of the precedent it sets,” Garrison said.
Councilor Mark Lunt said, “I would like to look at the fees as a larger issue.”
Later in the meeting, Fillmore said he would consider having part of the fees waived.
Councilor Dillon Pesce said he wished the situation “had been handled in a different way.
“I’m concerned about how one document turned into 200,” he said.
Fillmore said, “Twila has a suggestion. They’ll gather all the emails, then I’ll come in and look at them and decide which ones I want.”
Ward asked Fillmore to withdraw his request, but he did not.
The council voted 5-0 to deny the waiver.
Ward noted that Councilors Eric Metivier and Chris Brunelle did not attend the meeting because they were ill.
Earlier in the meeting, resident Richard Mains urged the council not to grant the waiver.
Mains said the town’s legal expenses for handling FOAA requests in 2012 and 2013 were between $13,000 and $15,000.
In other action, the council again voted down the proposed municipal budget. A workshop was set for Aug. 5 to continue budget discussions.
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