January 20, 1999; City of St. Paul
1/20/1999 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 person who requested this opinion and the response from the government entity with which the person disagrees are presented in summary form. Copies of the complete submissions are on file at the offices of IPA and, except for any data classified as not public, are available for public access. On December 1, 1998, IPA received a letter dated same from Chuck Laszewski, a reporter with the St. Paul Pioneer Press. In his letter, Mr. Laszewski requested that the Commissioner issue an opinion regarding the newspaper's access to data regarding MediaOne maintained by the City of St. Paul. IPA, on behalf of the Commissioner, wrote to Fred Owusu, Clerk of St. Paul, in response to Mr. Laszewski's request. The purposes of this letter, dated December 4, 1998, were to inform him of Mr. Laszewski's request and to ask him to provide information or support for the City's position. On December 14, 1998, IPA received a fax from Peter McCall, Assistant St. Paul City Attorney, informing the Commissioner that the data Mr. Laszewski requested were available for him to inspect, because MediaOne consented to its release. IPA contacted Mr. Laszewski who informed staff that he still desired an opinion from the Commissioner. IPA received the City's comments, submitted by Mr. McCall, on December 21, 1998, in a letter dated same. A summary of the facts is as follows. In a letter dated November 5, 1998, Mr. Laszewski requested the following data from St. Paul, [t]he file regarding the MediaOne plan to move into the office that was formerly the Department of Revenue building. I want to see contracts, memos, letters and any other documents relating to the building and the efforts to bring MediaOne or other tenants into it. In his opinion request, Mr. Laszewski stated that on approximately November 18, 1998, Mr. McCall, by telephone, denied access to the data. Mr. Laszewski then requested an advisory opinion. Issue:In his request for an opinion, Mr. Laszewksi asked the Commissioner to address the following issue:
Discussion:Pursuant to Minnesota Statutes Section 13.03, subdivision 1, all government data are presumed public unless otherwise classified by statute, federal law, or temporary classification (Section 13.06). In his comments to the Commissioner, Mr. McCall wrote that MediaOne had applied to St. Paul's Housing and Redevelopment Authority for economic assistance in connection with the former Department of Revenue building. He wrote, That application for economic assistance has not yet been submitted to the HRA Board for its approval. Mr. McCall asserted that the City denied Mr. Laszewski's request because the data are classified as not public by Section 13.62, economic assistance data. Section 13.62 provides that the following data collected by cities in their administration of the city economic development assistance program are classified as nonpublic: 1. application data, except company names, addresses, and other data that identify the applicant, until the application is approved by the city; 2. application data, except company names, addresses, and other data that identify the applicant, that pertain to companies whose applications have been disapproved; 3. attachments to applications including but, not limited to, business and personal financial records, until the application is approved; 4. income tax returns, either personal or corporate, that are filed by applicants; and 5. correspondence between the program administrators and the applicant until the application has been approved or disapproved. Mr. McCall argued that because Section 13.62 unambiguously applies to all economic assistance data related to any economic development assistance program by cities, the data requested by Mr. Laszewski are not public. The Commissioner respectfully disagrees with Mr. McCall's determination of the data classification; Section 13.62 classifies certain data related to a city's administration of the economic development asstance program, not any economic development assistance program. In reseaching Mr. Laszewski's question, the Commissioner reviewed the legislative history of Section 13.62. It originated in 1984 as a temporary classification request (see Section 13.06) from the City of East Grand Forks and was enacted by the 1985 Legislature. An examination of the application file, which contains public data maintained at the offices of IPA, revealed that the issue East Grand Forks brought to the Commissioner in 1984 regarded data about applicants for City Economic Development Assistance Fund loans and interest reduction under the Federally funded State administered (Department of Energy and Economic Development) Small Cities Development Grant (SCDG) Program. This is not the type of data Mr. Laszewski requested. Therefore, St. Paul cannot use Section 13.62 to deny access to the data. The Commissioner's position is further buttressed by the fact that the Legislature has enacted other provisions that classify municipal economic development assistance data. Sections 13.621 (Two Harbors Development Commission Data) and 13.622 (Moorhead Economic Development Authority Data), both enacted in 1996, classify data businesses submit in the course of seeking financial assistance. If Section 13.62 were meant to apply to all types of municipal economic development assistance programs, the Legislature would not have enacted Sections 13.621 and 13.622. Opinion:Based on the facts and information provided, my opinion on the issue raised by Mr. Laszewski is as follows:
Signed:
Scott R. Simmons
Dated: January 20, 1999 |
Response to data requests
Economic development assistance data(13.594 / 13.62); (13.5951 / 13.621); (13.5952 / 13.622); (13.5953 / 13.671); (13.596 / 13.76)
Data classification's origin
