As used in this Chapter, unless the context otherwise indicates,
the following terms mean:
COPYING
If requested by a member of the public, copies provided in
accord with the cost schedule established by this Article, if duplication
equipment is available.
PUBLIC BUSINESS
All matters which relate in any way to performance of the
City's functions or the conduct of its business.
PUBLIC GOVERNMENTAL BODY
Any legislative, administrative or governmental entity created
by the Constitution or Statutes of this State, orders or ordinances
of the City, judicial entities when operating in an administrative
capacity, or by executive order, including:
1.
Any advisory committee or commission appointed by the Mayor
or Board of Aldermen.
2.
Any department or division of the City.
3.
Any other legislative or administrative governmental deliberative
body under the direction of three (3) or more elected or appointed
members having rulemaking or quasi-judicial power.
4.
Any committee appointed by or at the direction of any of the
entities and which is authorized to report to any of the above-named
entities, any advisory committee appointed by or at the direction
of any of the named entities for the specific purpose of recommending,
directly to the public governmental body's governing board or its
Chief Administrative Officer, policy or policy revisions or expenditures
of public funds.
5.
Any quasi-public governmental body. The term "quasi-public
governmental body" means any person, corporation or partnership
organized or authorized to do business in this State pursuant to the
provisions of Chapters 352, 353 or 355, RSMo., or unincorporated association
which either:
a.
Has as its primary purpose to enter into contracts with public
governmental bodies, or to engage primarily in activities carried
out pursuant to an agreement or agreements with public governmental
bodies; or
b.
Performs a public function, as evidenced by a statutorily or
ordinance-based capacity to confer or otherwise advance through approval,
recommendation or other means, the allocation or issuance of tax credits,
tax abatement, public debt, tax exempt debt, rights of eminent domain,
or the contracting of lease-back agreements on structures whose annualized
payments commit public tax revenues; or any association that directly
accepts the appropriation of money from the City, but only to the
extent that a meeting, record, or vote relates to such appropriation.
PUBLIC MEETING
Any meeting of a public governmental body subject to this
Chapter at which any public business is discussed, decided, or public
policy formulated, whether corporeal or by means of communication
equipment. The term "public meeting" shall not include
an informal gathering of members of a public governmental body for
ministerial or social purposes when there is no intent to avoid the
purposes of this Chapter, but the term shall include a vote of all
or a majority of the members of a public governmental body, by electronic
communication or any other means, conducted in lieu of holding a public
meeting with the members of the public governmental body gathered
at one (1) location in order to conduct public business.
PUBLIC RECORD
Any record, whether written or electronically stored, retained
by or of any public governmental body including any report, survey,
memorandum, or other document or study prepared and presented to the
public governmental body by a consultant or other professional service
paid for in whole or in part by public funds. The term "public
record" shall not include any internal memorandum or letter
received or prepared by or on behalf of a member of a public governmental
body consisting of advice, opinions and recommendations in connection
with the deliberative decision-making process of said body, unless
such records are retained by the public governmental body or presented
at a public meeting.
PUBLIC VOTE
Any vote cast at any public meeting of any public governmental
body.
[Ord. No. 2069, 2-21-2023]
A. All
meetings, records and votes are open to the public, except that any
meeting, record or vote relating to one (1) or more of the following
matters, as well as other materials designated elsewhere in this Chapter,
shall be closed unless the Board of Aldermen votes to make them public:
1. Legal actions, causes of action or litigation involving a public
governmental body and any confidential or privileged communications
between a public governmental body or its representatives and its
attorneys. However, any minutes, vote or settlement agreement relating
to legal actions, causes of action or litigation involving a public
governmental body or any agent or entity representing its interests
or acting on its behalf or with its authority, including any insurance
company acting on behalf of a public government body as its insured,
shall be made public upon final disposition of the matter voted upon
or upon the signing by the parties of the settlement agreement, unless,
prior to final disposition, the settlement agreement is ordered closed
by a court after a written finding that the adverse impact to a plaintiff
or plaintiffs to the action clearly outweighs the public policy considerations
of Section 610.011, RSMo., however, the amount of any moneys paid
by, or on behalf of, the public governmental body shall be disclosed;
provided, however, in matters involving the exercise of the power
of eminent domain, the vote shall be announced or become public immediately
following the action on the motion to authorize institution of such
a legal action. Legal work product shall be considered a closed record;
2. Leasing, purchase or sale of real estate by a public governmental
body where public knowledge of the transaction might adversely affect
the legal consideration therefor. However, any minutes, vote or public
record approving a contract relating to the leasing, purchase or sale
of real estate by a public governmental body shall be made public
upon execution of the lease, purchase or sale of the real estate;
3. Hiring, firing, disciplining or promoting of particular employees
by a public governmental body when personal information about the
employee is discussed or recorded. However, any vote on a final decision,
when taken by a public governmental body, to hire, fire, promote or
discipline an employee of a public governmental body shall be made
available with a record of how each member voted to the public within
seventy-two (72) hours of the close of the meeting where such action
occurs; provided, however, that any employee so affected shall be
entitled to prompt notice of such decision during the seventy-two-hour
period before such decision is made available to the public. As used
in this Subdivision, the term "personal information" means information relating to the performance or merit of individual
employees;
4. The State militia or National Guard or any part thereof;
5. Non-judicial mental or physical health proceedings involving identifiable
persons, including medical, psychiatric, psychological, or alcoholism
or drug dependency diagnosis or treatment;
6. Scholastic probation, expulsion, or graduation of identifiable individuals,
including records of individual test or examination scores; however,
personally identifiable student records maintained by public educational
institutions shall be open for inspection by the parents, guardian
or other custodian of students under the age of eighteen (18) years
and by the parents, guardian or other custodian and the student if
the student is over the age of eighteen (18) years;
7. Testing and examination materials, before the test or examination
is given or, if it is to be given again, before so given again;
8. Welfare cases of identifiable individuals;
9. Preparation, including any discussions or work product, on behalf
of a public governmental body or its representatives for negotiations
with employee groups;
10. Software codes for electronic data processing and documentation thereof;
11. Specifications for competitive bidding, until either the specifications
are officially approved by the public governmental body or the specifications
are published for bid;
12. Sealed bids and related documents, until the bids are opened; and
sealed proposals and related documents or any documents related to
a negotiated contract until a contract is executed, or all proposals
are rejected;
13. Individually identifiable personnel records, performance ratings
or records pertaining to employees or applicants for employment, except
that this exemption shall not apply to the names, positions, salaries
and lengths of service of officers and employees of public agencies
once they are employed as such, and the names of private sources donating
or contributing money to the salary of a chancellor or president at
all public colleges and universities in the State of Missouri and
the amount of money contributed by the source;
14. Records which are protected from disclosure by law;
15. Meetings and public records relating to scientific and technological
innovations in which the owner has a proprietary interest;
16. Records relating to municipal hotlines established for the reporting
of abuse and wrongdoing;
17. Confidential or privileged communications between a public governmental
body and its auditor, including all auditor work product; however,
all final audit reports issued by the auditor are to be considered
open records pursuant to this Chapter;
18. Operational guidelines, policies and specific response plans developed,
adopted, or maintained by any public agency responsible for law enforcement,
public safety, first response, or public health for use in responding
to or preventing any critical incident which is or appears to be terrorist
in nature and which has the potential to endanger individual or public
safety or health. Financial records related to the procurement of
or expenditures relating to operational guidelines, policies or plans
purchased with public funds shall be open. When seeking to close information
pursuant to this exception, the public governmental body shall affirmatively
state, in writing, that disclosure would impair the public governmental
body's ability to protect the security or safety of persons or real
property, and shall in the same writing state that the public interest
in non-disclosure outweighs the public interest in disclosure of the
records;
19. Existing or proposed security systems and structural plans of real
property owned or leased by a public governmental body, and information
that is voluntarily submitted by a non-public entity owning or operating
an infrastructure to any public governmental body for use by that
body to devise plans for protection of that infrastructure, the public
disclosure of which would threaten public safety:
a. Records related to the procurement of or expenditures relating to
security systems purchased with public funds shall be open;
b. When seeking to close information pursuant to this exception, the
public governmental body shall affirmatively state, in writing, that
disclosure would impair the public governmental body's ability to
protect the security or safety of persons or real property, and shall
in the same writing state that the public interest in non-disclosure
outweighs the public interest in disclosure of the records;
c. Records that are voluntarily submitted by a non-public entity shall
be reviewed by the receiving agency within ninety (90) days of submission
to determine if retention of the document is necessary in furtherance
of a State security interest. If retention is not necessary, the documents
shall be returned to the non-public governmental body or destroyed;
20. The portion of a record that identifies security systems or access
codes or authorization codes for security systems of real property;
21. Records that identify the configuration of components or the operation
of a computer, computer system, computer network, or telecommunications
network, and would allow unauthorized access to or unlawful disruption
of a computer, computer system, computer network, or telecommunications
network of a public governmental body. This exception shall not be
used to limit or deny access to otherwise public records in a file,
document, data file or database containing public records. Records
related to the procurement of or expenditures relating to such computer,
computer system, computer network, or telecommunications network,
including the amount of moneys paid by, or on behalf of, a public
governmental body for such computer, computer system, computer network,
or telecommunications network shall be open;
22. Credit card numbers, personal identification numbers, digital certificates,
physical and virtual keys, access codes or authorization codes that
are used to protect the security of electronic transactions between
a public governmental body and a person or entity doing business with
a public governmental body. Nothing in this Section shall be deemed
to close the record of a person or entity using a credit card held
in the name of a public governmental body or any record of a transaction
made by a person using a credit card or other method of payment for
which reimbursement is made by a public governmental body;
23. Records submitted by an individual, corporation, or other business
entity to a public institution of higher education in connection with
a proposal to license intellectual property or perform sponsored research
and which contains sales projections or other business plan information
the disclosure of which may endanger the competitiveness of a business;
24. Records relating to foster home or kinship placements of children
in foster care under Section 210.498, RSMo.;
25. Individually identifiable customer usage and billing records for
customers of a municipally owned utility, unless the records are requested
by the customer or authorized for release by the customer, except
that a municipally owned utility shall make available to the public
the customer's name, billing address, location of service, and dates
of service provided for any commercial service account; and
26. Any records authorized by State law to be closed.
In order to allow the fullest cooperation by employees and members
of the public in investigation of matters wherein an employee of the
City is alleged to have engaged in any form of misconduct, all files,
records and documents relating to investigations of allegations of
misconduct by City employees will be considered to be personnel records
and shall be closed records under the custody of the respective department
head.
If a public record contains material which is not exempt from
disclosure, as well as material which is exempt from disclosure, the
custodian shall separate the exempt and non-exempt material and make
the non-exempt material available for examination and copying in accord
with the policies provided herein. When designing a public record
the custodian shall, to the extent practicable, facilitate a separation
of exempt from non-exempt information. If the separation is readily
apparent to a person requesting to inspect or receive copies of the
form, the custodian shall generally describe the material exempted
unless that description would reveal the contents of the exempt information
and thus defeat the purpose of the exemption.
A public governmental body or record custodian in doubt about
the legality of closing a particular meeting, record or vote may,
subject to approval by the Board of Aldermen, bring suit at the expense
of the public governmental body in the Circuit Court for the County
of Jackson to ascertain the propriety of such action. In addition,
subject to approval by the Board of Aldermen, the public governmental
body or custodian may seek a formal opinion of the Attorney General
or an attorney for the City regarding the propriety of such action.
In such events, the proposed closed meeting or public access to the
record or vote shall be deferred for a reasonable time pending the
outcome of the actions so taken.
[Ord. No. 912 §1, 2-1-1988; Ord.
No. 2069, 2-21-2023]
A. Fees
for copying public records shall be ten cents ($0.10) per page for
a paper copy not larger than nine by fourteen (9 x 14) inches, with
the hourly fee for duplicating time not to exceed the average hourly
rate of pay for clerical staff of the City. Research time required
for fulfilling records requests shall be charged at the actual cost
of research time. Based on the scope of the request, the City shall
produce the copies using employees of the City that result in the
lowest amount of charges for search, research, and duplication time.
Prior to producing copies of the requested records, the person requesting
the records may request the City to provide an estimate of the cost
to the person requesting the records. Documents may be furnished without
charge or at a reduced charge when the City determines that waiver
or reduction of the fee is in the public interest because it is likely
to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations
or activities of the City and is not primarily in the commercial interest
of the requester.
B. Fees
for providing access to public records maintained on computer facilities,
recording tapes or disks, videotapes or films, pictures, maps, slides,
graphics, illustrations or similar audio or visual items or devices,
and for paper copies larger than nine by fourteen (9 x 14) inches
shall include only the cost of copies, staff time, which shall not
exceed the average hourly rate of pay for staff of the City required
for making copies and programming, if necessary, and the cost of the
disk, tape, or other medium used for the duplication. Fees for maps,
blueprints, or plats that require special expertise to duplicate may
include the actual rate of compensation for the trained personnel
required to duplicate such maps, blueprints, or plats. If programming
is required beyond the customary and usual level to comply with a
request for records or information, the fees for compliance may include
the actual costs of such programming.
C. Payment
of such copying fees may be requested by the custodian prior to the
making of copies.
As used in this Article, the following terms shall have the
following definitions:
ARREST
An actual restraint of the person of the defendant, or by
his/her submission to the custody of the officer, under authority
of a warrant or otherwise for a criminal violation which results in
the issuance of a summons or the person being booked.
ARREST REPORT
A record of a Law Enforcement Agency of an arrest and of
any detention or confinement incident thereto together with the charge
therefor.
INACTIVE
An investigation in which no further action will be taken
by a Law Enforcement Agency or Officer for any of the following reasons:
1.
A decision by the Law Enforcement Agency not to pursue the case.
2.
Expiration of the time to file criminal charges pursuant to
the applicable statute of limitations, or ten (10) years after the
commission of the offense, whichever date earliest occurs.
3.
Finality of the convictions of all persons convicted on the
basis of the information contained in the investigative report, by
exhaustion of or expiration of all rights of appeal of such persons.
INCIDENT REPORT
A record of a Law Enforcement Agency consisting of the date,
time, specific location, name of the victim, and immediate facts and
circumstances surrounding the initial report of a crime or incident,
including any logs of reported crimes, accidents and complaints maintained
by that agency.
INVESTIGATIVE REPORT
A record, other than an arrest or incident report, prepared
by personnel of a Law Enforcement Agency inquiring into a crime or
suspected crime either in response to an incident report or in response
to evidence developed by Law Enforcement Officers in the course of
their duties.
If the person arrested is charged but the case is subsequently nolle prossed, dismissed, or the accused is found not guilty, or imposition of sentence is suspended in the court in which the action is prosecuted, official records pertaining to the case shall thereafter be closed records when such case is finally terminated, except as provided in Section
120.170 and except that the court's judgment or order or the final action taken by the prosecutor in such matters may be accessed. If the accused is found not guilty due to mental disease or defect pursuant to Section 552.030, RSMo., official records pertaining to the case shall thereafter be closed records upon such findings, except that the disposition may be accessed only by Law Enforcement Agencies, child care agencies, facilities as defined in Section 198.006, RSMo., and in-home services provider agencies as defined in Section 660.250, RSMo., in the manner established by Section
120.170.
Excepted as provided by this Section, any information acquired by the Police Department by way of a complaint or report of a crime made by telephone contact using the emergency number "911" shall be inaccessible to the general public. However, information consisting of the date, time, specific location, and immediate facts and circumstances surrounding the initial report of the crime or incident shall be considered to be an incident report and subject to Section
120.150. Any closed records pursuant to this Section shall be available upon request by Law Enforcement Agencies or the Division of Workers' Compensation or pursuant to a valid court order authorizing disclosure upon motion and good cause shown.