A. Any person wishing to inspect or copy public records of the City should make the request in writing on the City's request form attached as Exhibit A, or by letter, fax, or email addressed to the PRO and including the following information:
Name of requestor; address of requestor; other contact information, including telephone number and any e-mail address; identification of the public records adequate for the PRO to locate the records; and the date and time of day of the request.
B. A public record request must be for identifiable records. A request for all or substantially all records prepared, owned, used, or retained by an agency is not a valid request for identifiable records, provided that a request for all records regarding a particular topic or containing a particular keyword or name shall not be considered a request for all of the City's records.
C. If the requestor wishes to have copies or scans of the records made instead of simply inspecting them, he or she should so indicate and make arrangements with the PRO to pay for copies or scans of the records as provided in 1-10-9 below.
D. A form is available for use by requestors at the office of the PRO and on-line at www.longbeachwa.gov.
E. Public records requests are public records and subject to inspection or copying.
F. The PRO shall accept requests for public records that contain the above information by telephone or in person. The PRO will confirm receipt of the information and the substance of the request in writing. The confirmation will be deemed the correct statement of the scope of the request unless the requestor responds with a different statement of the scope.
G. Records requests may only include existing records. They cannot be used to obtain copies of records not yet in existence.
H. The City may deny a bot request that is one of multiple requests from the requestor to the agency within a twenty-four (24) hour period, if the City establishes that responding to the multiple requests would cause excessive interference with other essential functions of the City. A "bot" request means a request for public records that the City reasonably believes was automatically generated by a computer program or script. (Ord. 1019, 6-5-2023)