Source: http://www.pittgov.org/foia.htm
Timestamp: 2014-03-07 08:42:19
Document Index: 237604510

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2', '§2', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§2', '§2']

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The Rights of Requesters and the Responsibilities of the Pittsylvania County Administration under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act The Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), located § 2.2-3700 et. seq. of the Code of Virginia, ensures citizens of the Commonwealth and representatives of the media access to public records covered by the act that are held by public bodies, public officials, and public employees.
Your FOIA rights You have the right to request to inspect or receive copies of public records, or both. You have the right to request that any charges for the requested records be estimated in advance. If you believe that your FOIA rights have been violated, you may file a petition in district or circuit court to compel compliance with FOIA. Making a request for records from the Pittsylvania County Administration Office
You may request records by U.S. Mail, fax, e-mail, in person, or over the phone. However, as per §2.2-3704.1 (A) (1) of the Code of Virginia, 1950, as amended, your request must identify the records you are seeking with “reasonable specificity” in “plain English”. “Plain English” means written in nontechnical, readily understandable language using words of common everyday usage and avoiding legal terms and phrases or other terms and words of art whose usage or special meaning primarily is limited to a particular field or profession”.
From a practical perspective, it may be helpful to both you and the person receiving your request to put your request in writing. This allows you to create a record of your request. It also gives us a clear statement of what records you are requesting, so that there is no misunderstanding over a verbal request. However, we cannot refuse to respond to your FOIA request if you elect to not put it in writing. Your request must identify the records you are seeking with "reasonable specificity." This is a common-sense standard. It does not refer to or limit the volume or number of records that you are requesting; instead, it requires that you be specific enough so that we can identify and locate the records that you are seeking. Your request must ask for existing records or documents. FOIA gives you a right to inspect or copy records; it does not apply to a situation where you are asking general questions about the work of the Pittsylvania County Administration, nor does it require Pittsylvania County Administration to create a record that does not exist. You may choose to receive electronic records used by Pittsylvania County Administration in the regular course of business. Any electronic records requested will be delivered in PDF format via email, computer disc or you may elect to have a copy of the records printed for a nomial fee.
If we have questions about your request, please cooperate with staff's efforts to clarify the type of records that you are seeking, or to attempt to reach a reasonable agreement about a response to a large request. Making a FOIA request is not an adversarial process, but we may need to discuss your request with you to ensure that we understand what records you are seeking. To request records or to ask questions about records obtained from the Pittsylvania County Administration Office, you may contact the County Attorney. He can be reached at (434) 432-7720.
The Pittsylvania County Administration Office must respond to your request within five working days of receiving it. "Day One" is considered the day after your request is received. The five-day period does not include weekends or holidays. The reason behind your request for public records from Pittsylvania County Administration is irrelevant, and we cannot ask you why you want the records before we respond to your request. FOIA does, however, allow Pittsylvania County Administration to ask you to provide your name and legal address. FOIA requires that Pittsylvania County Administration make one of the following responses to your request within the five-day time period: We provide you with the records that you have requested in their entirety. We withhold all of the records that you have requested, because all of the records are subject to a specific statutory exemption. If all of the records are being withheld, we must send you a response in writing. That writing must identify the volume and subject matter of the records being withheld, and state the specific section of the Code of Virginia that allows us to withhold the records. We provide some of the records that you have requested, but withhold other records. We cannot withhold an entire record if only a portion of it is subject to an exemption. In that instance, we may redact the portion of the record that may be withheld, and must provide you with the remainder of the record. We must provide you with a written response stating the specific section of the Code of Virginia that allows portions of the requested records to be withheld. We inform you in writing that the requested records cannot be found or do not exist (we do not have the records you want). However, if we know that another public body has the requested records, we must include contact information for the other public body in our response to you. If it is practically impossible for [the Department] to respond to your request within the five-day period, we must state this in writing, explaining the conditions that make the response impossible. This will allow us seven additional working days to respond to your request, giving us a total of 12 working days to respond to your request. If you make a request for a very large number of records, and we feel that we cannot provide the records to you within 12 working days without disrupting our other organizational responsibilities, we may petition the court for additional time to respond to your request. However, FOIA requires that we make a reasonable effort to reach an agreement with you concerning the production or the records before we go to court to ask for more time.
You may have to pay for the records that you request from the Pittsylvania County Administration. FOIA allows us to charge for the actual costs of responding to FOIA requests. This would include items like staff time spent searching for the requested records, copying costs, or any other costs directly related to supplying the requested records. It cannot include general overhead costs. Currently Pittsylvania County Administration charges 50¢ per copied page.
If we estimate that it will cost more than $200 to respond to your request, we may require you to pay a deposit, not to exceed the amount of the estimate, before proceeding with your request. The five days that we have to respond to your request does not include the time between when we ask for a deposit and when you respond. You may request that we estimate in advance the charges for supplying the records that you have requested. This will allow you to know about any costs upfront, or give you the opportunity to modify your request in an attempt to lower the estimated costs. If you owe us money from a previous FOIA request that has remained unpaid for more than 30 days, Pittsylvania County Administration may require payment of the past-due bill before it will respond to your new FOIA request. Commonly used exemptions
The Code of Virginia allows any public body to withhold certain records from public disclosure. These exemptions may be found in Title 2.2, Chapter 37. For example, Pittsylvania County Administration commonly withholds records subject to the following exemptions:
Personnel records (§ 2.2-3705.1 (1) of the Code of Virginia) Records subject to attorney-client privilege (§ 2.2-3705.1 (2)) or attorney work product (§ 2.2-3705.1 (3)) Vendor proprietary information (§ 2.2-3705.1 (6)) Records relating to the negotiation and award of a contract, prior to a contract being awarded (§ 2.2-3705.1 (12)) County Administrator’s working papers and correspondence - (§2.2-3705.7 (2); §2.2-3705.1(5) ).