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Public Records Requests
General Information
It is Yamhill County's policy to respond to public records requests in an orderly, consistent, and reasonable manner in compliance with Oregon's Inspection of Public Records Law, ORS 192.311 to 192.478, which provides members of the public the right to inspect and copy public records that are not otherwise exempt from public disclosure, as defined in ORS 192.340 to 192.355.
Check with the specific department or office that you think holds the record to see if there are required written request or release forms. Public records requests must be in writing and each written request will receive a written response.
Request Records from a Specific Department
Frequently Asked Questions
Any writing containing information relating to the conduct of the public’s business, including but not limited to court records, mortgages, and deed records, prepared, owned, used or retained by a public body regardless of physical form or characteristics. ORS 192.410(4)(a).
A record may be handwritten, typed, photocopied, printed, microfilmed, or exist in an electronic form such as email or a word processing document, or other types of electronic recordings.
A record is a public record if it contains information relating to the conduct of Yamhill County business and is prepared, owned, used or retained by the County.
Oregon’s Inspection of Public Records Law allows public bodies to recover their actual costs in fulfilling a public records request. The fee must be reasonably calculated to reimburse Yamhill County for its actual costs in making records available, and may include:
Charges for the time spent by staff to locate the requested public records, to review the records in order to determine whether any requested records are exempt from disclosure, to segregate exempt records, to supervise the requester’s inspection of original documents, to copy records, to certify records as true copies, and to send records by mail; Time spent by an attorney to review, redact or segregate records for possible exemptions; A per-page charge for photocopies or requested records; and a per-item charge for CDs, audiotapes, or other electronic copies of requested records.
The requester will be informed of estimated fees and may be required to make a deposit before the request will be further processed.
Costs will vary. The cost for fulfilling a request is dependent on several factors: the types of records being requested; the complexity of the request; the amount of research/staff time required to assemble the information; and potential costs associated with legal review.
The County shall respond in accordance with Oregon Public Records Law, which currently requires the following:
a. The County will acknowledge receipt or complete all records requests within five business days of the County Administrator having received the request. According to ORS 192.324(2), the acknowledgement must:
i. Confirm that the public body is the custodian of the requested record;
ii. Inform the requester that the public body is not the custodian of the requested record; or
iii. Notify the requester that the public body is uncertain whether the public body is the custodian of the requested record.
b. As soon as reasonably possible, but not later than 10 business days after the date by which a public body is required to acknowledge receipt of the request under ORS 192.329(5), the County shall:
i. Complete its response to the public records request; or
ii. Provide a written statement that the County is still processing the request and a reasonable estimated date by which County staff expects to complete its response based on the information currently available.
c. According to ORS 192.329(6), the time periods established by ORS 192.324 and 192.329(5) do not apply if compliance would be impracticable because:
i. The staff or volunteers necessary to complete a response to the public records request are unavailable;
ii. Compliance would demonstrably impede the public body’s ability to perform other necessary services; or
iii. Of the volume of public records requests being simultaneously processed by the public body.