Contracts, The Yellow Book, and Leprechauns!

Ohio Public Records Briefing- Issue #31

Are you STILL HUNGOVER from St. Patrick’s Day? ARE WE TALKING TOO LOUD? Did you find any leprechauns? Probably not. But hey – you stumbled across the pot of public records GOLD!

Fun Fact

Contracts, agreements or even pinky promises can't change public records law.  In other words, when a public office is a party to a contract, any provision of that agreement that contradicts the Public Records Act, or tries to make certain information between the parties “confidential” is essentially void. A pile of pudding would hold up in court before such a deal.

For example, if a public office is party to an agreement that settles a civil lawsuit, only information that would otherwise be exempt under the Public Records Act can be redacted from that settlement. That’s true even if the terms of the agreement stipulate that it’s not a public record. Here’s an Ohio Supreme Court opinion that spells it out. Everything else is subject to release regardless of any agreement. Do you want to promise job applicants that you’ll keep their names or resumes confidential? Too bad, you can’t do that as a public agency!

Public Records 101

With all the time we've spent on CLEIR over the last weeks, this edition's 101 goes well with that theme. These things go together like this!

First things first, you can’t redact information using CLEIR as an exception in an initial incident report. According to State ex rel Steckman v. Jackson, routine factual information in an incident report must be released immediately upon request. No redactions.