NBC29Public Records Requests Costing RWSA

Public Records Requests Costing RWSA

Freedom of information isn't free. The Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority is paying the price, unexpectedly, spending thousands of dollars to meet requests for open records regarding a controversial construction project.

Since March the RWSA has fielded a slew of complex public records requests from a group of people who are opposed to the expansion of the South Fork Reservoir. Those requests have often required staff members to cull through boxes of documents, which often cover many years of records.

Legal advice for how to handle the requests has cost the RWSA $18,000 that the group hadn't expected to spend. RWSA says the increase in public records requests is starting to take a toll on the organization.

"It required many hundreds of hours of staff time, a significant amount of legal consultation to make sure that what we were doing was reasonable," said Tom Frederick, RWSA’s executive director.

Frederick says the demand for documents is putting a strain on RWSA’s resources because he has to pull staff off other assignments to handle the requests.

Frederick emphasizes that he and his employees recognize the importance of allowing access to public records. He says the authority is committed to doing everything it can to make that process as painless as possible.

Reported by Adam Rhew
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