LETTER: Public records and excessive fees

I read with interest the recent article concerning excessive public records fees and a letter to the editor declaring that the Nevada Public Records Act is absolutely necessary to maintaining a transparent government. I couldn’t agree more.

My own experience two years ago was when I requested files from a state of Nevada department when well more than a dozen people had claimed there was ongoing targeting, bullying and retaliation in the department. Imagine my complete surprise when I received an email stating, “The emails will need to be reviewed for the redaction of all personnel and/or HIPAA privacy contained in the emails. Since the email file is considerable, we will have to charge for man hours and costs outlined below: Man hours: review and redact = 80 hours, plus additional legal review of work = 80 hours. Total time 1 month. Hard costs 3,598 emails x 0.50 = $1,799.”

It is important to note that I had asked for the information to be provided electronically rather than hard copies, with the cost being a USB thumb drive, which I offered to provide.

I believe that such an outrageous cost would be difficult for most workers to pay. Does this really provide for a transparent government? Or does it provide for shutting out transparency and make an easy way to cover up things?