Maine towns OK with 1st-2hrs-free FOAA rule. NOT okay with "weaponized" FOAA requests

The November 17, 2022 meeting of the Right To Know Advisory Committee featured a presentation by Neal Goldberg of Maine Municipal Association on his survey of Maine towns' experience with FOAA requests, and their ability to fulfill them in a timely fashion - without sacrificing other municipal governance priorities. 

Listen to 3min mtg intro and Goldberg's presentation, 11min, followed by his responses to many questions from the committee, total 23min

 

Goldberg told the committee that overall, the FOAA request and response process is functioning smoothly at the municipal level. 99% of FOAA requests take less than two hours to respond to,  he said.   Many municipalities have even waived fees for searches that exceeded that two free hours limit when a  requestor had a reasonable request.  The simplicity of most requests, Goldberg said,  made them easy to fold into existing labors.

Not all was well.
MMA discovered a sharp rise in in towns experiencing disruptive FOAA requests. These are  intentionally extensive or onerous, or sometimes troubling to personal safety. A municipal town manager stated, “[people] are weaponizing the FOAA process.”

Most of these disruptive angry FOAAs come from individuals rather than commercial parties or NGOs,  Goldberg told the committee.    As an example, a Lincoln county  town official told MMA:

"I've received close to 30 FOAA requests from the same person since August 17th (2022), all with demands to have them completed within days, and threats to take me to court and explain my unreasonable response times to the judge, and all designed to avoid exceeding the 2 hours per request free of charge... I've put in more time on this one man's harassment than I have for a whole budget season."

Throughout the survey period, MMA staff was struck by how distraught respondents are when discussing FOAA requests.

Goldberg said another form of nuisance request: copycat requests. Maine's Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has warned municipalities to be watching for requests that appear to be out of context or uninformed on Maine laws.    

 Bellows said  such requests are instigated by sources outside of Maine to subvert the daily performance of municipal responsibilities. Frequently these copycat requests pertain to elections.

Sigh...