Title
Public Hearing and Approval of a Resolution Adopting Fees for Redacting Body Worn Camera Footage Requested Under the Public Records Act
Recommended Action
Committee Recommendation:
Not referred to a committee.
City Manager Recommendation:
Hold a Public Hearing and move to approve a Resolution Adopting Fees for Redacting Body Worn Camera Footage Requested Under the Public Records Act.
Report Issue:
Whether to hold a Public Hearing and move to approve a Resolution Adopting Fees for Redacting Body Worn Camera Footage Requested Under the Public Records Act.
Staff Contact:
Sean Krier, City Clerk, 360.753.8110
Presenter(s):
Sean Krier, City Clerk
Background and Analysis:
The Washington State Public Records Act permits law enforcement agencies responding to public records requests, for Body Worn Camera (BWC) recordings, to charge requestors reasonable fees for redacting videos prior to disclosure. The purpose for charging a fee is to deter requesters from submitting overly broad requests.
Fees are determined through a cost study published by the agency. With the launch of City's BWC program, the City conducted and published a cost study in 2022. The fee study:
* Identified what percent of requestors are exempt from paying the City;
* Determined how much to charge those requestors not exempt; and
* Established a model for determining how much of a deposit requesters should be charged prior to staff redacting the requested footage.
City staff conducted an update to the fee study to determine if there was a more streamlined model for determining the size of the upfront deposit requesters need to pay.
The current estimation model is extremely time consuming as staff have to watch the entirety of the film to create the estimate. Under the new proposed fee study, staff would run a simple calculation based on the length of the video being requested to determine a deposit.
In one recent example, creating an estimate under the existing approach took five ho...
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