Motion to archive records requests online tabled

SANDPOINT — Bonner County Commissioners voted Tuesday to table a motion made by Commissioner Asia Williams about archiving public records requests on the county’s website.

Williams said that archiving previously approved records requests will lift a tremendous amount of strain from county staff who have to spend their time fulfilling records requests rather than doing their actual jobs.

“It could help to reduce the number of records requests for the county to help our current issue,” she said.

Citing the overwhelming number of requests the county has recently received, Williams said it is causing a strain on staff, which is only getting worse. However, archiving completed records requests so they are available online could help, she said, especially when staff receive multiple requests about the same thing. This way, individuals can go online and find these requests without having to submit a form and wait days to receive the same documents that have already been cleared to be released.

Commissioner Luke Omodt said he would rather wait until legal counsel approved this proposal before voting on it. However, Williams said legal should not have to clear this decision, as any documents that would be uploaded will have already been cleared by their department.

“You don’t need legal because legal will already have done the release,” she said. “They’ve given the [original] community member the documents. If you get the documents released by the county, all you’re doing is archiving it online. The public is doing that [on Facebook already]. So this makes it easier … There’s no legal opinion, they will have already done it.”

Despite Williams’s contention, the motion to table passed, with Commissioner Steve Bradshaw and Omodt voting in favor of it.