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August 22, 2022 \u2014 The Board of Supervisors last week discussed a media exemption to a new ordinance that charges hefty fees for public records.\n\nOn June 21, the Board passed the ordinance, after hearing from County Counsel Christian Curtis that some people requesting public records were doing so in order to conduct market research or to take up county government time. He said then that the county receives about 4.7 public records requests per day, and that fulfilling them takes about 20-30% of his attorneys\u2019 time. He told the Board then that one person who is upset about a code enforcement issue is responsible for about 5% of the requests. \n\nMembers of the local media objected in person and by voicemail at the time, including Kate Maxwell, the publisher of the Mendocino Voice, Zack Cinek, who has an email newsletter on Substack called Newsboy, and me (Sarah Reith). It is unclear if anyone shared their opinion with the Board in writing, because February 8 is the last time that letters criticizing a proposed policy were attached to the agenda so the public could see them.\n\nThe fees are broken down into three categories: for duplicating documents, searching for documents that have not been specifically described, and specialized search and review fees, for when a request calls for staff to sift through records that are disclosable as well as those that are not. Requesters will be charged $20 an hour to search for documents and refile them. The charge for attorney time to sort out the public documents from those that are confidential is $150 an hour, or $50 an hour if non-attorney staff undertakes the task. The county will update the requester each time they\u2019ve run through $50 worth of searching, and the requester can decide then whether or not to make another $50 deposit. Over-and underpayments are to be reconciled when the records are provided.\n\nLast week, the Board agreed to create a public records request grant program for local media organizations to request the public records. Curtis told the Board that this would not have an adverse effect on the budget, though the stated reason that public correspondence has not been uploaded to the agendas for most of the year is that the county cannot afford to hire clerks.\n\nSupervisor Glenn McGourty asked Curtis if there would be an application and vetting process for people requesting the media grant. \u201cI think that\u2019s going to be necessary,\u201d Curtis said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to create a program that\u2019s going to increase the overall amount of administrative work in a way that exceeds the benefit that\u2019s being received\u2026what we\u2019re thinking is a relatively short application form. Something that would really just establish some basic criteria and would not require substantial vetting. For most media organizations, I think it\u2019s going to be relatively straightforward to determine eligibility and be able to get that on file. I don\u2019t know that it\u2019s going to have to be exceptionally arduous for the ones that are more borderline. The more we can have simple, objective criteria, whether that\u2019s circulation, et cetera. I really want to make sure that I\u2019m clear on this up front. From a First Amendment standpoint, every piece of criteria is going to have to be viewpoint neutral. So we can\u2019t look at things like the quality of the reporting, how accurate we think the information is. It\u2019s really got to be something that\u2019s tied to things like circulation, something that is showing that this is something that is effectively reaching a sufficiently sized audience to be a worthwhile investiture of the public funds and an efficient use of the resources. And then it\u2019s really up to the media organizations and what has been referred to as the marketplace of ideas to be able to sort out where to go from there.\u201d \n\nI want to say here that I spoke again during public comment, and was encouraged to receive an invitation from County Counsel to work with his office offline to hammer out some of the complexities involved. My situation is that I am employed by KZYX, the public radio station in Mendocino County. I freelance for other outlets, and sometimes people volunteer to help me with research. Often, they wish to remain anonymous.\nI accepted the invitation at the time, and I remain encouraged by the willingness to consider my input. But I ultimately bowed out of the meeting after reflecting that I do not personally believe the ordinance is perfectable. \n\nMichael Katz, the Executive Director of the Mendocino Cannabis Alliance, summed up the experience of many of us who wish to have free and easy access to public documents.\n\n\u201cJust limiting it to media is something that is also not necessarily as beneficial as it could be for the whole community,\u201d he argued. \u201cThere are many groups here that are engaged actively with the County and the goings-on there, and have constituencies. And there is, due to substantial understaffing\u2026a lack of transparency in certain things. And so in the past when ite...