[Ord. No. A-340 §1, 11-15-2004]
A. Except
to the extent disclosure is otherwise required by law, the City or
any other public governmental body of the City is authorized to close
meetings, records and votes, to the extent they relate to the following:
1. Legal actions, causes of action or litigation involving the City
or any other public governmental body of the City and any confidential
or privileged communications between the City and any other public
governmental body of the City or its representatives and its attorneys.
However, any minutes or vote relating to litigation involving the
City or any other public governmental body of the City shall be made
public upon final disposition of the matter voted upon; 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 the City or any other
public governmental body of the City where public knowledge of the
transaction might adversely affect the legal consideration therefor.
However, any minutes or vote or public record approving a contract
relating to the leasing, purchase or sale of real estate by the City
and any other public governmental body of the City 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 the City and any other public governmental body of the City when
personal information about the employee is discussed or recorded.
However, any vote on a final decision, when taken by the City and
any other public governmental body of the City, to hire, fire, promote
or discipline an employee of the City and any other public governmental
body of the City must be made available 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 (72) 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. Nonjudicial 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 the City and any other public governmental body of the City 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 City or any other public governmental
body of the City 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;
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. Confidential or privileged communications between a public governmental
body and its auditor, including all auditor work product.
17. Operational guidelines and policies developed, adopted or maintained
by any public agency responsible for law enforcement, public safety
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. Nothing
in the exception shall be deemed to close information regarding expenditures,
purchases or contracts made by an agency in implementing these guidelines
or policies. When seeking to close information pursuant to this exception,
the agency shall affirmatively state in writing that disclosure would
impair its ability to protect the safety or health of persons and
shall in the same writing state that the public interest in non-disclosure
outweighs the public interest in disclosure of the records. This exception
shall sunset on December 31, 2008.
18. 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.
Records related to the procurement of or expenditures relating
to security systems 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 of 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.
Records that are voluntarily submitted by a non-public entity
shall be reviewed within ninety (90) days of submission to determine
if retention of the document is necessary in furtherance of a security
interest. If retention is not necessary, the documents shall be returned
to the non-public governmental body or destroyed.
19. 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 monies paid by or on behalf of a public governmental
body for such computer, computer system, computer network or telecommunications
network, shall be open.
20. 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.
[Ord. No. A-341 §1, 11-15-2004]
A. The
City Clerk is who is to be responsible for the maintenance of the
City's records. The identity and location of the City's Custodian
is to be made available upon request.
B. The
City shall make available for inspection and copying by the public
of the City's public records. No person shall remove original public
records from the office of the City or its Custodian without written
permission of the designated City Clerk.
C. Each
request for access to a public record shall be acted upon as soon
as possible, but in no event later than the end of the third (3rd)
business day following the date the request is received by the Custodian
of records of the City. If access to the public record is not granted
immediately, the Custodian shall give a detailed explanation of the
cause for further delay and the place and earliest time and date that
the record will be available for inspection. This period for document
production may exceed three (3) days for reasonable cause.
D. If
a request for access is denied, the City Clerk shall provide, upon
request, a written statement of the grounds for such denial. Such
statement shall cite the specific provision of law under which access
is denied and shall be furnished to the requester no later than the
end of the third (3rd) business day following the date that the request
for the statement is received.
E. Cost Of Research/Reproduction. Records not exempt from disclosure
shall be provided to those requesting copies at a cost of ten cents
($0.10) per page or portion thereof.
1. In the event a request for copies shall require research over and
above the time for reproduction, a charge equal to the average hourly
rate for clerical staff and the actual cost of research time shall
apply. The City Clerk shall require payment prior to duplicating copies.
2. Documents may be furnished without charge or at a reduced charge
when the City Clerk or Board of Aldermen determines the waiver or
reduction of the fee is in the public interest and not primarily in
the commercial interest of the requester.
3. Fees for providing access to public records maintained on computer
facilities, recording, tapes or disks, videotapes or films, picture,
maps, slides, graphics, illustrations or similar audio or visual items
or devices, and for paper copies larger than nine (9) by fourteen
(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 public
governmental body 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.