Buckingham registrar charges $200 'convenience fee' in FOIA feud with county official

[mahatmakanejeeves]

County supe
@tjordanmiles3
, the FOIA requester in the case, is considering taking this to court.

He also shared the emails with the local electoral board and said "it is unacceptable to talk to anyone like this."

virginiamercury.com
Buckingham registrar charges $200 ‘convenience fee’ in FOIA feud with county official - Virginia...
The top election official in a rural Virginia county tried to impose an extra fee for a county supervisor whose FOIA requests he deemed

Link to tweet

Buckingham registrar charges $200 ‘convenience fee’ in FOIA feud with county official

‘You have annoyed me for the last time’

BY: GRAHAM MOOMAW - MAY 5, 2023 12:04 AM

The newly appointed interim leader of Buckingham County’s election office recently derided a Democratic county supervisor’s Freedom of Information Act requests as “nonsense” and “ridiculous” while tacking on what he called a $200 “convenience fee” to a bill for public records. ... Under state law, public officials are only allowed to charge for actual costs they incur for responding to FOIA requests, such as staff time spent searching for documents and the expense of printing hard copies. ... “It’s absolutely not allowed under FOIA to have some sort of extra fee that is unrelated to the actual cost,” said Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government.

Late last month, Buckingham Supervisor Jordan Miles sent two FOIA requests to new General Registrar Luis Gutierrez, who was hired by Buckingham’s Republican-controlled Electoral Board.

Buckingham’s election office made national news a month ago when NBC News published an article revealing the county’s entire election staff had quit after Republicans took control of the Electoral Board in January. The staffers who left pointed to baseless voter fraud claims as a significant factor in their decisions.

{snip}

Gutierrez, who runs voter registration and elections in the rural county of almost 17,000 people, noted that he was adding a $200 “convenience fee” to an existing bill of $575.09. He said he could “forget” the extra $200 if Miles were to pay the $575.09 by May 15. ... “I hereby am notifying you and your pawns that my services will absolutely exceed $200.00,” Gutierrez wrote. “Secondly, since you are obviously a young man without any type of ethical business aptitude and respect for other individual’s time spent on your trickery and mockery, you are free to come pick up these FOIA Requests at my office. I will not be mailing them because my time is valuable, and you have annoyed me for the last time. No more playing nice, Mr. Miles. I tried that, and look where it got me with you.”

{snip, including the letter}

GRAHAM MOOMAW
[e-mail]
https://twitter.com/gmoomaw
A veteran Virginia politics reporter, Graham grew up in Hillsville and Lynchburg, graduating from James Madison University and earning a master's degree in journalism from the University of Maryland. Before joining the Mercury in 2019, he spent six years at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, most of that time covering the governor's office, the General Assembly and state politics. He also covered city hall and politics at The Daily Progress in Charlottesville.

[canuckledragger]

1. Sounds like some crooked republican is trying to hide something.