Salt Lake Tribune: Utah Bill to Lower Costs for Records Requests Stalls in Committee

C'mon, folks there has to be some low threshold which even our government secrecy minded Utah legislative "critters" can tolerate, right?

Journalists and sometimes citizens alike are being priced out of the ability to check on government.

Sheryl Worsley, president of the Utah Headliners 
Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists
Utah bill to lower costs for records requests stalls
February 4, 2014

Reasonable fees lead to reasonable requests. Some cranks request huge amounts of records on fishing expeditions, and it could worsen if they do not need to worry about costs.

Ogden City Attorney Gary Williams
Utah bill to lower costs for records requests stalls
February 4, 2014

Mr. Williams has been in the business of obstructing legitimate GRAMA requests for many years. As a result of his obstruction, Ogden ended up paying $10,000 in attorney's fees to one requestor (the Sierra Club, of which I was the acting official) a few years ago...
I suppose I'm one of the "cranks" that Mr. Williams is referring to.

Ogden City Political Watchdog Dan Schroeder
Utah bill to lower costs for records requests stalls (comment)
February 4, 2014

Pay through the nose
 to peek inside

Bad news for open government advocates, with this The Salt Lake Tribune Wednesday story, reporting that "opposition from cities stalled a bill Tuesday that would require local governments to cover the first $1,000 in costs for (Governmenent Records and Management Act ]GRAMA]) records requests whenever they are ruled to be primarily in the public interest":

• Utah bill to lower costs for records requests stalls

And yes, folks, as indicated by the highlighted quotes above, this is a story of particular local interest here in Ogden City, where examples of "public interest" GRAMA request obstructionism are "legion."

We'll be standing by with abated breath to learn whether Rep. King will succeed in bringing his HB242 back to committee with some kind of compromise, in a Utah legislative atmosphere which still remains, (shall we say) decidedly "public records request unfriendly".

Maybe a $500 "public interest" threshold, perhaps? C'mon, folks, there has to be some low threshold which even our government secrecy minded Utah legislative "critters" and elected municipal officials can tolerate, right?