Walton County Public Records Lawsuit

[Here4Good]

There is actually a good article in the NWFDN today about the lawsuit:

Trial date set in Walton public records case | county, records, mso - News - Northwest Florida Daily News

There are a couple of things that I find disturbing:

Walton County has no records retention policies or procedures. They do have a public records liason, but she:

"said in her deposition that she does not have in-depth knowledge about the county's electronic record-keeping policies, did not know that the Clerk of Courts office has ultimate responsibility for maintaining public records or why, how or by whom records are destroyed."
​

The county did, however, swear they were in compliance:

"In November 2007, then-commission Chairman Kenneth Pridgen signed an oath stating that the county was in compliance with public-records law.

That oath, which named Deanna Foreman as the designated liaison responsible for maintaining public records, also was signed by Comander in November 2008."
​

The IT director admitted that "not much" was done to comply with the original request.

This isn't about the original complaint anymore - it's about Mike Burke calling the request "too time-consuming" and now the IT director admitting it would have taken about an hour to do.

They have been unable to produce a written copy of their records retention policy. This is ridiculous.