“Run the query, tell me what it found, and price only the records you produce.”
He answers Oregon Department of Transportation’s letter of October 30, 2026, and asks it to run the query, writing, “Run the query, tell me what it found, and price only the records you produce.”
Public Records Officer,
On October 30, 2026, you wrote: “we are able to confirm that ODOT is the custodian of at least some of the requested public records.”1 In the same letter you wrote: “ODOT will have to run an Outlook data query of all ODOT email accounts over a three year period to determine if there are responsive records to this request,” and priced that query at “$37.50 for 1 hour of professional services staff (ODOT Server Applications Analyst) research time.”
An acknowledgment takes one of three positions: the public body is the custodian of the requested record, it is not, or it is uncertain [ORS 192.324(2)]. A price is not one of them. You confirmed you hold the records, then charged me to learn whether they exist. Your own estimate puts that search, across every mailbox for three years, at one hour.
A fee may only be “reasonably calculated to reimburse the public body for the public body’s actual cost of making public records available” [ORS 192.324(4)(a)]. Learning whether records exist is what the acknowledgment requires of you. It does not make any record available.
Run the query, tell me what it found, and price only the records you produce. Follow the statute [ORS 192.324(2)].
Thank you for your contribution to the record.
