This letter is my objection to your opinion regarding my complaint about the records I requested that were produced under the contract between Jefferson County and the Jefferson County Economic Development Corporation (JCEDC).

I believe that Jefferson County, the JCEDC and I were all hoping for the same thing from your response an item-by-item examination of the records I requested, with your opinion as to whether each was valid under the Open Records Law. You did not provide this.

In fact, you state that you did not even examine the records that were supplied to the County by the JCEDC in response to my request. This is a gross injustice.

You had documentation in hand that explained exactly which records I requested and which I claim I did not receive. You state that you never compared my requests to what was supplied. You also did not judge whether any of my requests should be considered valid requests, or not.

You also state "At this point in time I believe all of the records that were collected or produced under the contract with Jefferson County have been made available to you in one form or another."

Unfortunately, the County, the JCEDC and I all apparently disagree with that. As shown by the very correspondences mentioned in your response, it is clear that the County Administrator was unable to surrender records because the JCEDC had not supplied them. Also, the JCEDC originally stated it need not supply any of the items in the contract, but later supplied only some of the items, including some that I had not requested.

Similarly, in the County Corporation Counsel's opinion, other records had not been produced. I too found that records I'd requested had not been supplied.

How can you claim that "all of the records ... have been made available to you" if you made no effort to determine whether each of my requests were valid or not, and if you never examined what was supplied, and if never attempted to match it to what I requested?

For example, you mention that I requested the electronic database of businesses in the County. It is described as a "database" in the contract, that is, an electronic record. I asked for it in electronic form, its natural form, and did not receive it.  The County was given a printed copy. A printed copy is useless for automated examination.

Again, section 19.32(2) of the statutes clearly recognizes electromagnetic records. Numerous cases and opinions of the Attorney General's office confirm that if a record is created in electronic form, a requester can demand it in unaltered electronic form.

You also make several statements to the effect that if a record had been created prior to the signing of the contract, it should not be available to me. As far as I can tell, the Open Records Law makes no such distinction. If an item is listed as a deliverable in the contract with the County, it is fair game. It doesn't matter when it was created.

Of course, I did not request "all of the records that were collected or produced under the contract." My requests were specific. I only requested records from the first quarter of the 2001 contract. I requested a subset of items, as derived from the contract's list of deliverables that the JCEDC promised to deliver to the County.

I would like to know if you will reconsider your opinion in order to supply a complete response that examines each item I requested and compares it to the records that were supplied, or whether I am now forced to appeal to the State Attorney General's office, or seek a Writ of Mandamus on my own.