May 10, 1995; City of Coon Rapids
5/10/1995 10:14:43 AM
This is an opinion of the Commissioner of Administration issued pursuant to section 13.072 of Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 13 - the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act. It is based on the facts and information available to the Commissioner as described below.
Facts and Procedural History:For purposes of simplification, the information presented by the citizen who requested this opinion and the response from the government entity with which the citizen disagrees are presented in summary form. Copies of the complete submissions are on file at the offices of PIPA and are available for public access.On April 17, 1995, PIPA received a letter dated April 13, 1995, from Thomas Casey. In this letter, Mr. Casey requested that the Commissioner issue an advisory opinion regarding his dispute with the City of Coon Rapids over access to data. Mr. Casey's letter had two attachments. The first was a copy of a FAX dated April 14, 1995 (it appears the date on this FAX may be incorrect), addressed to Mr. Casey from Michelle Posch, Community Development Department of Coon Rapids. The FAX reads, ...I'm not able to send out the [materials] to you until Monday morning, after City Council has received their agendas.... The second attachment was a copy of a letter dated April 13, 1995, from Mr. Casey to Al Hofstedt, City Attorney for Coon Rapids. Mr. Casey writes, ...To restate my previous oral request made today, I respectfully request that the City of Coon Rapids fax a copy of the Tuesday, April 18, 1995 city council packet pertaining to the above-stated item. This material was generated today as public government data. You denied my oral request based on a city council policy that allows the city council packet to be released only afterit is received by the city council...I request that the City of Coon Rapids change the above policy because it violates the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act..... On April 17, 1995, PIPA contacted Mr. Casey and suggested that since he had very recently made a request for the meeting materials to Mr. Hofstedt, it would be reasonable to give Mr. Hofstedt one week to respond to that request. Mr. Casey agreed. On April 28, Mr. Casey related to PIPA that he had received no response from Mr. Hofstedt or anyone else associated with Coon Rapids. So, in response to Mr. Casey's April 13, 1995, opinion request, PIPA, on behalf of the Commissioner, wrote to Bob Svehla, Manager of Coon Rapids. The purposes of this letter, dated April 25, 1995, were to inform Mr. Svehla of Mr. Casey's request, to ask him or Coon Rapids' attorney to provide information or support for the City's position, and to inform him of the date by which the Commissioner was required to issue this opinion. PIPA received no response from Mr. Svehla or anyone else representing Coon Rapids. Issue:
In his request for an opinion, Mr. Casey asked the Commissioner to address the following issue:
Discussion:
According to Mr. Casey, the information he seeks is contained in packets which are prepared for meetings of the Coon Rapids City Council. Apparently, it is the policy of Coon Rapids that the packets are not released to the public until the City Council has received the packets. Mr. Casey believes the packets should be released to the public as soon as the data are generated.
There appears to be no dispute that the data Mr. Casey seeks are government data. Section 13.02, subdivision 7, defines government data as, ...all data collected, created, received, maintained or disseminated by any state agency, political subdivision, or statewide system regardless of its physical form, storage media or conditions of use. Political subdivision is defined in Section 13.02, subdivision 11, as, ...any county, statutory or home rule charter city, school district.... In addition, there appears to be no dispute that the data Mr. Casey seeks are public government data. If Coon Rapids considers these data to be anything other than public data, it is required under Minnesota Statutes Section 13.03, subdivision 3, to so notify Mr. Casey and to cite the specific statutory section, temporary classification, or specific provision of federal law on which any such determination is based. According to Mr. Casey, he received no such notification from Coon Rapids and, as mentioned above, Coon Rapids provided no comments regarding its position to PIPA. Mr. Casey's question is at what point do the data in question become public. First, based on the aforementioned discussion, it is clear that any data collected, created, received, or maintained by Coon Rapids contained in the City Council packets are government data. Second, there appears to be no dispute that these same data are classified as public government data. Therefore, the data contained in the City Council packets that are collected, created, or received by Coon Rapids are public as soon as they are collected, created, or received by Coon Rapids. The data in the packets should be available for public inspection once agents of Coon Rapids have prepared the data. Opinion:Based on the correspondence in this matter, my opinion on the issue raised by Mr. Casey is as follows:
Signed: Elaine S. Hansen
Dated: May 10, 1995 |
Response to data requests
Minutes, personal notes
