The Covington City Commission unanimously voted to change the city’s open records ordinance this week. Specifically, the change adds a line requiring Kentucky residency for those making requests.
The new ordinance (and the state generally) define a resident as one of the following:
- Someone living in Kentucky
- An American business with a location in Kentucky
- A foreign business properly registered with the Kentucky Secretary of State’s Office
- Someone who is employed by and works at a business in Kentucky
- A person or business that owns property in Kentucky
- A person or business authorized to act on behalf of any of the business previously mentioned
- A news-gathering organization
The new ordinance also strikes language from the previous ordinance that prevented the city from asking people making requests for proof of residency. Additionally, it removes language stating “access to public records shall be granted, or denied, based on the records’ content and not on the identity of the requester or the requester’s purpose or intended use of the records.”
Most cities in the commonwealth adhere to the residency requirement, and City Solicitor Frank Schultz previously said the change came about due to the high number of out-of-state requests the city receives.
“The number of out-of-state open records requests that we receive constitutes roughly 41% of all requests, and honestly, it takes up a tremendous amount of time with the legal department,” Schultz told the city commission at their April 15 meeting.
“This is used a lot of times by companies and data miners who are trying to get information from the city for free and trying to make us do all the work,” Schultz later said. “Currently, our code of ordinances does not expressly state that we cannot use this exemption already provided by [Kentucky law], but we thought that it was needed to make it clear, just so that our policy is clear.”
The commissioners engaged in no discussion before casting their final votes on Tuesday.
Read the full text of the ordinance below.