Should Erlanger change its open records regulations?

Erlanger has formed a task force to consider whether to change its public records request regulations.

The task force is chaired by Council Member and former Mayor Tyson Hermes and met for the first time Tuesday afternoon. No official actions took place at the meeting. Task forces are recommending bodies that can’t pass legislation, but Hermes believed exploring the topic was necessary in the face of the proliferation of AI technology and, as he argued, possible abuse of the current regulations.

“Ultimately, what I would like to see is that we develop some policy for the city of Erlanger to give us some rubric for the city clerk to be able to work off of,” Hermes said at the conclusion of the meeting.

Not everyone was convinced, though. A handful of residents attended the meeting and expressed worries that such proposals could be used to deny access to public records, which is guaranteed under the Kentucky Open Records Act.

“The law is what it is,” said resident Kevin Brinkman.

Hermes pointed to several concerns for forming the task force.

The first is the use of AI programs, which can generate large amounts of text quickly and conceivably flood clerks’ offices with requests. Clerks are required to respond to every request, and the fear was that a high number of automated requests could become onerous for city workers, especially if the requests ended up not actually being from people genuinely seeking records.

Hermes argued this was more acute with requests for police department body camera footage than with city administration. The police department, which did not have a representative at the meeting, later confirmed with LINK nky that they dealt with AI-generated requests and that it was sometimes difficult to discern the purpose of the requests. Hermes gave some numbers for general government requests, and LINK is working to confirm the figures. We will update this story once we know more.

Other problems, Hermes said, were requests from attorneys that were never picked up and requests from bad actors attempting to gunk up city operations by making excessive requests.

Erlanger would not be the first city in Northern Kentucky to amend its records requests policies. Covington amended its record request ordinance last year, adding a mandate for requesters other than news organizations to prove their Kentucky residency. There have also been rumblings at the state level to change records laws in the form of House Bill 567, which is currently on the floor of the Kentucky House.

Sponsored by Rep. Patrick Flannery, a Republican from Olive Hill in Carter County, HB 567 would change the state’s open records laws to allow a public agency’s records custodian to ask for a government-issued photo ID, like a driver’s license, to prove a records requestor’s residency. According to the Kentucky Open Records Act, a public agency can include state and local government officials, school districts and any organization that gets at least 25% of its funding from the state.

Flannery told the House State Government Committee at the end of last month that the bill is a solution to local governments being “bombarded with AI chatbots” and other technology on open records requests, as a box can be checked claiming Kentucky residency “when there’s really no proof.” 

HB 567 also changes the definition of a resident of the commonwealth to include a business entity with a physical location in Kentucky, rather than just having to be registered with the secretary of state.

Gracie Kelly, the director of government affairs for the Kentucky League of Cities who also attended the committee hearing, said Tennessee has a proof of identification requirement in its open records law. The organization represents more than 370 cities and municipal agencies. 

“The only new burden is now you have to show proof of residency,” Kelly said.

The Kentucky Open Government Coalition, which advocates for easier access to government records, submitted a letter in opposition to the bill to the committee ahead of a February meeting. Written by the coalition’s Co-Director Amye Bensenhaver, the letter pointed to Tennessee’s requirement. An open government coalition there argued that removing the requirement for public records requesters to show a driver’s license would reduce work for government employees, aid residents who do not want to mail or email a copy of their license because of privacy concerns, reduce the need for a government entity to handle personal information and more. 

“While we anticipate threats to the open records and open meetings laws of equal or greater seriousness in the upcoming session, we are not prepared to yield to the proposal for an additional requirement on open records requesters, not to mention agency records custodians, when there is no evidence that the requirement enhances agency efficiency or advances the public’s right of access,” Bensenhaver wrote. “The experience of the handful of neighboring states that impose a residency requirement suggests otherwise.” 

An ID requirement was not among the remedies Hermes pitched at the Tuesday meeting. Instead, he pitched possibly requiring a nominal fee to disincentivize AI bots – currently records request responses carry a fee to offset printing costs and similar expenses, whereas emailed records are usually free – or granting the city clerk more leeway in declining requests.

Hermes insisted that he was “not trying to make the city do anything that’s not legal” or put the clerk at risk of running afoul of the law.

Still, people who attended the meeting had concerns.

“The whole idea behind the Open Records Act, as well as the Open Meetings Act, is transparency,” said attorney and former City Council Member Randy Blankenship. “So, it seems to me, if we’re talking about trying to limit what is to be produced, or to make it more difficult to have records produced, you’re actually violating the spirit of the law.”

Diana Niceley, a current council member who’s also running for mayor, thought the council and city government could be more generally transparent in its operations and communications, which, she argued, may have the effect of reducing the number of records requests made.

The task force tentatively set the date of its next meeting to Tuesday, April 14 at 5 p.m. You can keep up with meeting announcements for the task force, the City Council and other city task forces at the City of Erlanger’s news page.

McKenna Horsley of the Kentucky Lantern contributed reporting to this story.