February 27, 2004; Minnesota Department of Transportation
2/27/2004 10:16:43 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:On January 20, 2004, IPAD received a letter dated January 14, 2004, from Ron Lietz. In his letter, Mr. Lietz asked the Commissioner to issue an advisory opinion regarding his access to certain data that the Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT) maintains. In response to Mr. Lietz's request, IPAD, on behalf of the Commissioner, wrote to Carol Molnau, Commissioner of Mn/DOT. The purposes of this letter, dated January 22, 2004, were to inform her of Mr. Lietz's request and to ask her to provide information or support for Mn/DOT's position. On February 6, 2004, Mn/DOT staff forwarded to IPAD a copy of a letter Bob McFarlin, Assistant to Commissioner Molnau, sent to Mr. Lietz on January 22, 2004. A summary of the facts as Mr. Lietz presented them is a follows. In a letter dated October 20, 2003, Mr. Lietz requested the following data from Mn/DOT: 1. A list of all the Data Requests that have been made to the Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/Dot) by Representative Philip Krinkie (Minnesota House District 53A) in the last five (5) years. 2. The itemized costs of all these Data Requests that have been made to the Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/Dot) in the last five (5) years by Representative Krinkie including the number of man-hours spent by the Commission assembling the data for each and every request. 3. A list of all the Data Requests that have been prepared by the Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/Dot), but have not been either picked up or forwarded to Representative Krinkie within the last five (5) years. I understand that there is at least one. In his opinion request, Mr. Lietz wrote, While, I have talked to 'officials' individuals [sic] within the Department, my informal contacts tell me this Agency has done absolutely no work processing my requests. Issue:In his request for an opinion, Mr. Lietz asked the Commissioner to address the following issue:
Discussion:Pursuant to Minnesota Statutes, section 13.03, when a government entity receives a data request from a requestor who is not the subject of the data, the entity is required to respond in an appropriate and prompt manner and within a reasonable time. (See section 13.03, subdivision 2(a), and Minnesota Rules, section 1205.0300.) Mr. Lietz requested data in a letter dated October 20, 2003. Mr. McFarlin, in his January 22, 2004, letter to Mr. Lietz, wrote: This is in response to your request under [Chapter 13] which [Mn/DOT staff] received from you via facsimile on November 10, 2003.... We have the data requests from Representative Krinkie, those data that we assembled in response to the requests, and our responses. However we do not have lists of these data requests nor in most cases is there a record that anyone made any attempt to itemize the cost of assembling the data. [Chapter 13] requires that we make public data available for your inspection and provide copies (there would be a charge for the latter), however, the law does not require us to create data that does not exist. If you want to inspect public data that we have (the requests, the data and the responses), we could assemble and review the data and make it available for your inspection within a period of 2 weeks, possibly less. However, the lists that you request do not exist. As of the date of Mr. McFarlin's letter, approximately twelve weeks had passed since the date of Mr. Lietz's data request. In the Commissioner's opinion, Mn/DOT's response was not prompt or made within a reasonable time. Mr. McFarlin is correct in stating that if Mn/DOT does not maintain the data in the format requested by Mr. Lietz, Mn/DOT is not required to create additional data. However, as the Commissioner has stated in previous opinions, no response is not an appropriate response. Mn/DOT needed to communicate to Mr. Lietz that it does not maintain the data in the requested format. If Mr. Lietz wishes to inspect or obtain copies of the related data that Mn/DOT maintains, he needs to so inform Mr. McFarlin and Mn/DOT promptly should provide the data. Opinion:Based on the facts and information provided, my opinion on the issue raised by Mr. Lietz is as follows:
Signed:
Brian J. Lamb
Dated: February 27, 2004 |
Copy costs
Copy costs
Existence of data
Response to data requests
Cost of creating new data
Requestor must be informed
No response
