On Mar 10, 2014, at 12:01 AM, RECMGMT-L automatic digest system <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Information at a cost: Citizens required to pay up if they want access to public documents | The Daily Times |delmarvanow.com
> Date: March 9, 2014 at 11:18:27 PM EDT
> 
> 
> Information at a cost: Citizens required to pay up if they want access to
> public documents
> Imagine if one hardware store charged you for tools, while the one in the
> next town over did not. What if Royal Farms made you a chicken sandwich at
> no cost, while Wawa charged $7 and yet another store billed you by the hour
> for the time spent to bake the bun and cook the chicken?It's that kind of
> crazy-quilt inconsistency that The Daily Times discovered in a three-state
> investigation of the cost of obtaining public records on the Delmarva
> Peninsula. Send a request for documents in one town, and you may well
> receive everything you asked for without paying one penny.
> 
> http://delmarvane.ws/1gjZZvK

This is a distorted discussion. Some McDonalds let you fill and refill your drinks.  Others give you one container of soda and that is it.

Running a Town Clerk’s office and storing and protecting all of the Deed Books, Birth, Death and Marriage Records is an expensive proposition. Typically they have a vault.  Every 30 or 40 years they must re-condition the books due to age and use. The cost for this is paid for in different ways.  In some Towns, the taxes are higher and in others there are Use fees, copy fees and so on.

The simplest and fairest way to handle this is to charge the users an access fee. Typically law firms are the biggest users as they must access the Deed Books, Abstracts and so on to create a clear title.  No one ever bought a piece of real estate where the lawyer and the title company did not charge you fees for their legal assistant or lawyer to visit the Town, pull up the appropriate information and copy it into the title documents.  The fairest way is for the Town to chafe these lawyers for this activity as it ties of Town Staff for a period of time.  The better the records management by the Town;  the faster the transaction, and the lower the cost.

Every Town has people who are in the Town weekly pulling records repeatedly for what ever cause they are on that week. One week it is Sludge on pastures, the next is snow plows pushing snow on their property and in Wisconsin it is sand mining for Frack Sand use. These activists overwhelm the Town Staff for their pet causes and sue the Town because the Clerk is overworked and did not comply fast enough. In some cases, they grant people access to the files and then historical documents turn up on eBay.

In my 40 years in this crazy business, I have found Town Clerks to be the best across the board records managers. Despite politics, and limited budgets, they year in and year out maintain a tight program. The Town Supervisors, Town Selectman or Town Councilmen establish a policy to fund the cost of this excellent records management. Usually with plenty of Town citizen input. There is no free lunch.  Typically the fees of 25¢ to $1.00 for a birth certificate or $25.00 for a complete copy of the title information or abstract; and this covers the cost of the copying and some staff time.  If you visit Town Halls the Clerk will located in a tight office behind a 30 year old desk and a 10 year old computer but the records management is always first rate.  But Federal Law dictates the salaries these people are paid and these costs must be covered by the volume of activity individuals create.  That is the fair and honest way. The reference above to a free chicken sandwich is misleading as no one gives out free sandwiches. And there is no free records management.

Hardware stores giving out free tools would not last long.  Towns are in this for the long haul.

Peter as President of ARMA send them a strong letter. Point out the Delmarvia Penninsula is actually governed by three different states: Delaware, Maryland and Virginia and that each has different reimbursement levels from their states.  That Towns decide locally how to handle their self support and there is nothing going on but the most efficient records management possible.  Can I get an AMEN!


Hugh Smith
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