How long does it take to email someone a set of PDF files?

For the millions of people who do it at their jobs every day, the answer is probably 10 to 15 minutes. For Yavapai County, the answer could be 19 days.

On Nov. 18, the Sedona Red Rock News made a request to the Yavapai County Clerk of Superior Court for a digital copy of the case file for case number P-1300-CV-202100142, Residents of the Red Rock Loop v. Yavapai County. The case involves a group of homeowners suing the county on the grounds that the Board of Supervisors violated Arizona’s open meeting laws in the process of settling a land use dispute.

Although Yavapai County has previously provided the NEWS with digital copies of court documents at no cost as a courtesy to aid in informing the public, in this instance, the county delayed its response to the request until Nov. 29, when the clerk of court informed the NEWS that there would be a fee of 50 cents per page for the documents, and that payment would be required in advance.

“I know the county wouldn’t charge that kind of fee for a public record,” Assistant County Administrator Martin Brennan said when the proposed fee was brought to his notice on Nov. 30, adding that he didn’t know where county staff were getting that total. Brennan attempted to contact court administration for an explanation but was unable to reach anyone there at the time. He advised the NEWS to remind the clerk’s office of their disclosure obligations under Arizona Supreme Court Rule 123.

When the NEWS attempted to obtain the records in person from the clerk of court office in Camp Verde on Nov. 30, staff stated that they would not be able to burn the documents to a CD until the following day. The fee requested for a CD copy of the documents was $31.50.

Upon pickup of the CD on Dec. 1, county staff also informed the NEWS that the computers located in the clerk of court’s office did not have working CD drives, making it impossible to check the files on the CD at the time. The CD later turned out to have been improperly burned and the files, if any, that it contained were unreadable.

The NEWS contacted Brenda Holley, court coordinator in Camp Verde, on Dec. 2. Holley agreed to provide the case files by email, but the NEWS did not receive them until Dec. 7.

Meanwhile, the NEWS had received another email from the clerk of court’s office on Dec. 2, which, instead of providing an estimated cost for the files based on page count as the NEWS had requested on Nov. 29, suggested that the NEWS pay $37 to cover the cost of a CD copy and postage.

In reply to a suggestion by the NEWS that the clerk of court’s office provide the files by email at no further charge, given the office’s previous provision of a defective CD, the office emailed the NEWS a set of 11 documents that appeared to be those most recently filed in the case. These consisted of such documents as notices and scheduling orders and did not include the original complaint or the defendants’ responses. Court coordinator Jonathon DeRois did not reply to followup calls through Dec. 7.

According to Arizona Revised Statute §39- 121.01(E), “Access to a public record is deemed denied if a custodian fails to promptly respond to a request for production of a public record.”

Although Arizona law does not define promptitude in terms of a fixed number of days, the Court of Appeals of Arizona found in Phoenix New Times v. Arpaio that documents provided 49 days [34 working days] after a request was made were not provided promptly. “If public entities could be excused from providing public records merely by being inattentive to requests, then access to the records would be easily frustrated,” the court wrote.

Furthermore, as explained in the Arizona Agency Handbook prepared by the attorney general’s office, while “a public officer or public body may refuse to disclose documents that contain information protected by a common law privilege where release of the documents would be harmful to the best interests of the state,” this exception may not be used “to save an officer or public body from inconvenience or embarrassment. Nor may officials deny access simply because the records might be used to establish tort liability on the part of the state.”