The official Custodian of Records for the Town of Pike Road is the office of the Town Clerk pursuant to the code of Alabama 1975, Section 11-43-100. All access to public records must be requested through the Town Clerk.
The purpose of the Open Records Act is to allow the public to monitor the way public officers discharge their public duties. However, not all records are public, such as confidential information, sensitive personnel records, records pertaining to pending criminal investigations, and records which if disclosed would be detrimental to the best interests of the public, as well as other categories of information that may not be appropriate for public disclosure.
To protect the Town of Pike Road from any potential litigation, to establish accountability, and to establish a good tracking system, the Information Request/Subpoena Policy is hereby implemented.
It is the policy of the Town of Pike Road to provide copies of public documents upon request in an expedient manner. When the request is received in the office of the Town Clerk, the person requesting the information is told the request is normally handled within fourteen working days. Such requests, particularly those involving a large volume of information, must be handled on an available basis such as to not compromise the Town’s day-to-day operations.
The Town reserves the right to refuse requests to produce or provide records or reports not already being produced in the normal course of business or to provide them in a different format.
The municipal officials and employees have no greater rights to inspect records than do members of the public. Also, while the Council acting has the right to request to see certain documents, individual Council members must demonstrate their interest to review records, just like private citizens.
The Town of Pike Road is entitled to recover its cost of providing requested information and is obligated to institute such procedures as are necessary to protect the public records and ensure their continued integrity. To those ends, the following shall apply to all public requests/subpoenas of any kind:
- For reproduction of records, the city will assess a per page charge as authorized by law for reproduction costs. The charge is $1.00 per page for black and white or color copies. Certification of copies will be an additional $2.00 per page. If a request involves a large volume of information, at the discretion of the Town Clerk, a retainer may be required before starting the project. If the retainer is not used up, the balance will be refunded. A reasonable search fee will be charged for certain time dated reports and or time spent copying the reports. This fee will be at the employee’s hourly rate of pay for the time spent by each staff member. Research time will be billed in ¼ hour increments.
- The Town of Pike Road limits the number of public record requests that can be submitted per week to one.
- To maintain the integrity of public records, some records will be provided in electronic format. This is at the discretion of the Town Clerk. For documents produced in electronic format, there will be a charge of $8.00 per media unit (CD, Flash Drive and E-mail, etc.) plus a charge of $0.25 per document page provided in the media unit.
- Reasonable public access shall be granted to view records under the supervision of a Town employee designated by the Town Clerk in the Town Clerk’s office.
- Viewing records in the Town Clerk’s office will also require filling out a ‘Request for Public Records’ form and a viewing time will be scheduled as to not interfere with the Town’s day-to-day operations.
- All records must always remain in custody of a Town employee. As a measure to safeguard records, reproductions of any kind, may not be made by anyone other than a Town employee designated by the Town Clerk.
- The Town is entitled to verify the identity of the person requesting the records as well as the person(s) receiving such information.
- All requests must be presented to the Town Clerk on the Town of Pike Road’s Request for Public Records form and signed. The applicant’s signature certifies that the applicant has read, understands, and agrees with the terms and conditions of the policy for handling public information requests.
- All requests and/or subpoenas served by the county sheriff, certified mail, hand delivered by an attorney (pertaining to a lawsuit and/or claim), must be processed by the Clerk of the Town of Pike Road, the official custodian of records.