Communications and Notes

[Amanda Zant]

Hello! We get several requests for deputy notes and internal communications (emails). We will have our IT do a search for emails responsive, and then ask our deputies to provide any notes they saved. Just today our Legal Services (corporate counsel) indicated that deputy notes may not be subject to FOIA. They are preliminary utilized to write a report.

Does anyone else deal with these types of requests and how do you proceed/respond?

[Nicole Pankratz]

Our Cooperate counsel also handles the email requests. Regarding notes, all of our deputies notes are for their reports and they toss them out at the end of their shifts when they complete their report. So for us, I have never had anyone have notes, so they do not exist. However, I have never heard that they are not subject to FOIA??

[Kimberly Bertoia]

From my understanding, if the officers are in possession of their notes, they are subject to FOIA.

[Author]

Posts