Summary: "The City of Willow Park is now live with the new Gov QA portal for open records requests. Not only can you use it to request documents, it will allow you to track the status of your requests and will notify you when your documents are ready for review." [Includes Willow Park Civics research on Open Records Act and Public Information Act.]
Latest Update: Monday, 05 December, 2022
New Open Records Request Portal for Willow Park
The City of Willow Park is now live with our new Gov QA portal for open records requests. Not only can you use it to request documents, it will allow you to track the status of your requests and will notify you when your documents are ready for review. This portal will be the method going forward for city hall, the police department, and the fire department.
You can explore the Public Records Center and make requests here."
City of Willow Park, 05 December 2022
Willow Park Civics Research
Attorney General of Texas > Open Government >
> Office of the Attorney General and the Public Information Act, The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) is responsible for the integrity of the public information process under the Public Information Act (PIA) and the PIA authorizes the OAG to interpret its requirements. The OAG serves both members of the public and governmental bodies in protecting open government under the PIA, and this site includes resources for both groups.
> Members of the Public, The PIA generally requires a governmental body to release information to a requestor. However, if a governmental body determines the information is excepted from disclosure under the PIA, then the request and information must be reviewed by the OAG's Open Records Division (ORD). The ORD will issue a decision on whether the governmental body is permitted to withhold the requested information or if it must release the information to the requestor. Every two years, the OAG publishes an updated Public Information Handbook (PDF).
> Governmental Bodies > PIA and OMA Training Resources
> Open Reports and Publications for the state of Texas
Texas Secretary of State > Open Records Policy - Rights of Requestors, Responsibilities of Governmental Bodies, Procedures to Obtain Information
Texas State Library and Archives Commission > Open Records/Public Information Act
Texas Municipal League > Public Information Act, Articles / Memos, Papers, Helpful Links
Journal
23 August 2022 Council Meeting. Agenda item 7. Discussion/Action: to consider and approve a proposal from Granicus for Public Information Software. Background: The city does not currently have a public records management system in place. GovQA’s (Granicus) purpose is to streamline requests in a secure, efficient manner, and provide invoices to requestors as needed. City records and police report requests have different sensitivity needs. This system allows each department to facilitate their requests through the proper channels. [GovQA Public Records Software]
How Texas lawmakers patched open government laws this session, The Texas Tribune, 05 June 2019, Excerpts - Advocates say recent court rulings created loopholes in laws meant to make government transparent. Lawmakers sought to close those this year — but may have created a loophole for themselves.
WP approves new software for open records requests, Weatherford Democrat, 10 April 2019, Excerpts
The Willow Park city council approved an open records request software called NextRequest, after the city received about 638 total requests over the past year, according to City Secretary Alicia Smith.
“Transparency in general is a trend and people want more documents, they expect more documents,” Smith said. “If you include accident reports and everything, we got about 638 [requests] in the last year. In my office I would say I had about 200 to 300 requests.”
Smith said she did demos for three different software programs, but NextRequest seemed to be the best fit.
“NextRequest originally came in with a bid of $8,000 for the first year, but then I spoke with their rep [Monday] and she said they really wanted our business, so she sent me a new bid of $5,000,” Smith said. “The companies I spoke to all said the average open records request costs the city about $150 a piece.”
Smith said the software will allow people to request information online. It will give them a number and send email updates on their request and then once the information is given, it can be published online for others so they don’t have to submit another request for the same information, if that information can be made public.
“There are some things we don’t make public — personnel issues, medical records, juvenile reports — but this reduces the number of open records requests and also streamlines the process and makes it easier for citizens to get,” Smith said. “The Attorney General’s Office has said that an email constitutes an open records request and coming in and writing a request on a piece of paper is considered an open records request. A phone call is not considered an open records request. This doesn’t cut out people’s ability to do those things, it just adds to the possibilities.”
Smith said about 50-percent of all their requests are for police incident or accident reports and most of the others are requests for financial information, ordinances and codes. But Smith said the software will allow the city to also publish items that are frequently requested.
“Say if we see a trend every month that someone wants a list of residential permits, which is something we get every month, we can start going ahead and putting that online,” Smith said. “I haven’t talked specifically to Hudson Oaks or Aledo, but I know in other cities they’re appalled at how many open records requests I get. The number of open records requests actually threw us into another tier, a city with 75,000 population, so normally the request volume we’re seeing here is in a much larger city.”
Place 2 Council Member Amy Fennell said the information Smith shared was “kind of jaw-dropping.”
WP City Manager Bryan Grimes said the current population of the city is 5,500 and the software will help streamline the spike in Freedom of Information Act requests.
“We probably handle more FOIA and open records requests than any town I’ve been in, certainly any town larger than 5,000 people, so what we’re trying to do is streamline that process and make it easier, and try to cut down some of the duplicity of some of the requests as well,” Grimes said. “We’re not trying to less transparent, we’re trying to be more transparent.”
The council unanimously approved the purchase of NextRequest software for the city.
09 April 2019 Council Meeting, Agenda item 8. Discussion/ Action: To consider and take action on the purchase of open records request software.
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