Information and data provided by any person or obtained from any report, questionnaire, permit application, permit and monitoring program, and from inspections shall not be made available to the public or any other government agency, unless required by law.
(A) Upon submission of information in any form, it shall be the obligation of the submitter to separate all confidential and trade secret material from any material subject to disclosure under the law.
(B) Any request made under the law for information containing confidential or trade secret information shall be brought to the attention of the person requesting confidentiality of its trade secrets by certified mail, return receipt requested. The notification shall advise the person requesting confidentiality of the decision of the administering agency regarding release of the confidential information. In no event will such confidential information be released until five days have elapsed from the date notice is sent by certified mail.
(C) Within 72 hours after receipt of notice, the person requesting confidentiality of trade secrets shall have the burden to initiate appropriate actions at law or otherwise to protect the confidential or trade secret information from disclosure and must demonstrate that public disclosure of confidential or trade secret information is likely to cause substantial harm to his or her competitive position.
(D) Any individual who releases information containing confidential or trade secret information in violation of law or this section shall be subject to disciplinary action by his or her employer for malfeasance, misfeasance and willful neglect of official duties, and may further be guilty of misuse of confidential information under KRS 522.040.
(E) The provision of this section shall in no way prohibit or limit the exchange of information, confidential or otherwise, between public agencies when the exchange is serving a legitimate government need or is necessary in the performance of a government function including, but not limited to, the carrying out of the provisions and intent of this chapter.
(F) OCDES shall be the repository for all trade secret information for the purpose of this chapter.
(Prior Code, § 93.48) (Ord. 590, passed 2-6-1996) Penalty, see § 94.99