Members of the King George County Board of Supervisors spend much of their time during meetings extolling the virtues of transparency.
The board, however, is now considering a way to make the public’s ability to obtain information more difficult.
During its Tuesday meeting, County Attorney Richard Stuart proposed that the board eliminate the free initial 30 minutes of research related to a Freedom of Information Act request.
Board Chair T.C. Collins was alone in his unwillingness to adjust the county’s FOIA policy, which was amended last summer to afford citizens 30 free minutes.
“Even though you have abuses of the system, I want the public to have the right to not be paying for their own information,” said Collins, “because it is their information.”
Stuart noted that Virginia law authorizes local governments to charge a reasonable fee not to exceed what it costs to perform the task. King George charges the hourly rate of the employee conducting the research for any requests that take more than 30 minutes.
Board member William Davis suggested the county examine a policy that would say “no more to you,” once a member of the public reaches a certain number of requests.
Supervisor Ken Stroud mused aloud whether there could be more restrictive rules for media outlets than the public, while Cathy Binder asked if a limit could be placed on the number of requests one can make in a given period.
“I’m not looking to punish anybody,” Supervisor David Sullins said. “I’m just looking to regulate this just a little bit. You talk about making sure we’re following the rules, the rules say we can charge for all of them.
“We, on our own accord, said you can have the first 30 minutes free. I’m just saying we don’t have to give the first 30 minutes if they’re just going to keep rapid fire requesting again and again and again.”
Stuart said FOIA Officer Jaclyn Fish has been inundated with requests since three new members – Davis, Stroud and Sullins — took office in January and Collins became chair.
There have been 160 FOIA requests since January compared to 108 all of last year. Members of the public have been more engaged with King George County government since the new board’s attempt to scuttle a performance agreement with Amazon Data Services that the previous board signed in December.
There has also been significant turnover in administrative offices and the fire department.
Sullins told the Free Press recently that the county asked for the resignations of County Attorney Kelly Lackey and County Administrator Chris Miller in January.
Several other voluntary resignations followed, including Deputy County Attorney Jessica Washington, Human Resources Director Derrick Metsler, Director of Tourism and Economic Development Nick Minor and Finance Director Donna Hahn. Nine firefighters have also resigned during that timeframe.
Stuart and some of the board members are upset that one media outlet sent 33 FOIA requests since the first of the year. Stuart asserted that the outlet uses the 30-minute rule to its advantage, stating that if the reporter sends several short requests instead of one larger one, each action will take less than 30 minutes and will be free of charge.
Stuart said the board can petition the court for relief if requests become too overwhelming, but added he is more concerned with the way the requests are structured than the amount. He said the outlet requests “one little thing” in each email.
“If we start the clock over every time she does a request, we’re not going to get anything out of this,” Sullins said, referring to the reporter. “She’s going to keep firing … I want to be open. I want to be transparent, but I also want to acknowledge that some of this is just badgering.”
The board did not act on Stuart’s suggestions but pledged to do more research and come up with a decision to either adjust or keep the policy at either its April 16 or May 7 meeting.
In another discussion, Collins said four candidates were recently interviewed to replace Miller as county administrator.
