##VIDEO ID:D_6GMKHWk48## flag the United States of America to theic stand One Nation I forgot a roll call vote to open the meeting well that's right CU elici is on Zoom y That's right exactly Dana Packer you here here Jeff Walker je walk here Lesar Matthews Les Matthews here F the mail and on Zoom is Alicia Greco who's par she's participating because of personal illness and will Us's Town Council Lisa me so the first item the only item on the agenda is training here we go happy New Year everyone happy New Year and it seems like at least once a year we get to do something fun like open reading Law or public records law or something like that good so Al Alicia asked me to come do a a brief refresher on everybody on the public crackers law um to start off the year um this just so you know is also helpful to us when we if we have public records complaints then we tell the Secretary of State's office no we're doing our training and everybody knows what they're supposed to be doing and we're going to keep it up so um today I'm just going to go through the public records law and if you have any questions uh you know let me know as you go along as we go along so the public records law is found in chapter 4 section 7 of the general laws chapter 66 of the general laws and uh the regulations are 950 CMR 32 and I'm going to see if I can there we go all right so what is a public record so instead of reading this whole thing I'm going to tell you what a public record is a public record is any document or text or electronic mail that you have and keep and create as a part of your role as a member of the select board or that any department head does the same and keeps and creates or any employee as a part of their business as a city excuse me as a town official right so if even if it's on your private email so if you have a private email as opposed to a town email and you send let's say you send something to Tracy and it's you know are we meeting tonight and what's on the agenda that's a that's a public record right if um you were to send something bill was to send something to Jeff says hey are you going to that turkey shoot um next weekend and you guys didn't approve a turkey shoot or anything like that it was just wanting to know if you were going to the turkey shoot that is not a public record cuz it wasn't something that you were doing in your official business even though you happen to both be members of the select board okay so it's anything that you keep do write say transmit electronically that is part of your official business that's really broad but those are all public records and the public has a right to those documents unless there's an exception to keep them confidential okay does anybody have any questions about what is a public record no I just want to add that I just I pulled this up today and it's put out by the state and it's a guide to Massachusetts Public Records law yeah and it's really good yeah well that's right we use that daily right right it it's it's kind of you know it's it's 83 pages long but I like how it's laid out so that's the Secretary of State's office who's it charged with um enforcing uh the public records law and that's the guide book that they put out to help answer those questions and there's a whole series of question and answers in there so if you just had happen to have a quick question you can find that question is is an email I sent checking on something the select board doing a public record the answer is yes right so that is a very good document to have but yes that is the Secretary of State's office puts that out so what can be accepted from the public records law or a public records request that is what may be withheld so something that's um Exempted from Disclosure by Statute so for example when the assessors get requests for abatements they have a separate statute that says those abatement requests are confidential all right because they have personal financial information in them and so those would be exempt from the public records law but what would happen is if somebody made a public records request the response would have to say I'm sorry those documents are being with held because they are exempt under the assessor statute you'd have to say what it is so it doesn't mean that you don't have to respond to somebody it just means you have to tell them why you're not disclosing the documents um personnel and medical files or information those are all exempt except that doesn't necessarily apply to law enforcement misconduct records okay so there are some exemptions for law enforcement misconduct records but those often times have to be redacted before they can be disclosed so we always have to look at the exemptions uh Records the disclosure of which may cause an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy let's say somebody um uh wanted records related to um uh uh wanted a an arrest report that had information about a domestic case right so so we might be able to redact the information related to the people involved in the domestic case particularly obviously if it was a juvenile um but we would provide the record but it would be redacted and we would say why it was redacted but there's unwanted uh invasion of personal privacy inter or intra policy development memos those are not yet public documents until the final memo is developed so if you're in the middle of developing a policy let's say you one of you Tracy uh maybe some other department heads are trying to develop a policy on um Urban Development right and you're getting all kinds of information and the you have various drafts of it um none of that is disclosable until the final draft is done and once the final draft is done the prior drafts are all available okay so those policy development memos what the law says that they don't want to inhibit you from conversation and development of policy that may be controversial while you're developing it but the public has a right to know once it's developed the process that you went through all right uh personal notes of an employee um let's say that uh Joy um had to keep notes you know uh like you know so and so came in today I got to remember to make sure I put that in the schedule uh you know Gretchen came up and asked a question don't forget to ask Tracy about that those those are personal notes those are not disclosable for the public records investigatory materials complied compiled by law enforcement um and so that's if there's an ongoing investigation um those obviously for obvious reasons are not disclosable that doesn't mean people don't ask for them uh proposals and bids before they're open before they're open they're not disclosable but once they're open they're public documents appraisals of real property until a final agreement um or litigation is involved so if you get an appraisal for real property in order to buy it or take it or whatever those are not disclosable until that matter is over or the litigation is resolved if there's litigation involved in it uh names and addresses of applicants for gun licenses interestingly enough is not uh records of plans and procedures for security measures obviously there's a good reason to have those all um confidential home addresses of certain government employees okay not all government employees home addresses are are confidential certain government employees police officers are disclosable for example judges are not so we always have to look at the list and see whose addresses are dis regular um you know everybody that works in the clerk's office or in the treasurer's office or those are all disclosable it's all public information um name and address of family members of certain government employees those are not disclosable and trade Seekers if you had any trade TR Secrets those are not disclosable so you always have to look and see because there may be statutory exemptions like all the juvenile stuff that's all a separate statutory the rape Shield law provides another statutory exemption so you always have to look and see um but otherwise everything is uh considered a public record um the this is the case that I was just talking about um in fact it was one of our cases that until about two years ago it was always determined that the drafts up to the development of the actually inter intra policy memo were never public that those those were drafts and they were drafts and they could even be you know thrown away but the final policy is What mattered but two years ago the Secretary of State's office made a determination that no all of the drafts are available once the final document is made available too so that was a case that happened two years ago um every town has to have a record's access officer so you have Tracy Gretchen and chief Fisher are your record's access officers and um it the name and title of those people and how to get a hold of them are on the website it's all available for the public so the public knows how to get in touch with uh the records access officer just because your record's access officer doesn't mean you're not necessarily custodian of the records cuz different people are custodians but the record access officer has the best access to the documents Andor the custodians so that person has the following responsibilities uh to assist the custodian of the records to produce any any records and follow the rules and regulations uh to coordinate the town's response to the records requests to assist the the requester and identifying the records They seek so a lot of times the public comes in and they just know there's a record there they know exactly what record they're looking for so you can't kind of make a a public citizen kind of flounder and try to figure out what record it is that they're trying to find the record access offer is supposed to help them so let's say I wanted to get a copy of a permit that was issued by the zoning board of appeals right but I don't know what that permit's called I just say well you know they they were allowed to build their house and there was a hearing I I want to know what that decision is the records access officer can't say well till you can tell me the name of the document you can going to get it right you can't do that so they're supposed to help facilitate making sure the person gets the gets the document I ask a question M the Ros the three that you mentioned that we have in this town here are they do they have their own little bubble or as all three of them they'll help each other out no but I mean for example like if someone were to ask the chief for a record right that might have to do with the assessor's office yeah would that work well every department head is required to help anyway right so if even if Patty wasn't even if the chief wasn't the record's access officer right and somebody went in and said I'm looking for a property well that's probably a bad example no no no but but but that my point is is that they would be required to say well you need to go talk to the assessor or the town clerk right you have to assist a little bit so it doesn't matter but the raos are supposed to assist no matter what and and they're all equal they don't have a specific no no no right yes got you that was my question I guess yeah I have a question yeah if someone ask me for a public record yeah I should refer them to one of the yeah access officers corre not suppli public correct absolutely correct you don't you are not responsive and the reason is in a minute you're going to see they have a lot of responsibility the record access officer has to keep track I believe you actually have a database has to keep track of when the record comes in when the First Response came out what was responded to when the second response goes out and you have to have that all un log right so that's why you don't want to be responsible for any of that the records access officer has to keep track of all of that good um and so as I said a minute ago they um have responsibility for the preservation of Records according to the appable laws they coordinate um the town's response uh they assist the requester and identifying the the right documents um and then they document the public records uh request um so they're supposed to do all of those things in addition they have to prepare guidelines to provide anyone making a public records request if they ask for them uh and the guidelines include um making the information available uh that they enable the requestor to make informed requests include the list of categories of public records maintained by the town um and it has to be posted on the website too so The Rao has a lot yes Alicia okay I have I have a question um or clarifying if you could clarify and maybe it's in the next slide is there a reason why this is important because the law requires it the law requires it because you can get fined right so you can get fined or go to court or like if if you don't respond in an appropriate time period or you don't give the right documents or worse yet you give documents that are supposed to retain remain confidential you you have liability there right so if you gave documents away that included uh confidential information private information from an about an employee you have now just opened yourself up to um actions potential actions by that employee right or open the town up to potential actions by that employee so that's why it's important because all the records access officers know most times now particularly in Newbury we don't necessarily see the public records request people know what to do but they also know how to issue spot so if something comes in and they're like m not sure that I should answer that it comes over to us and we help provide an answer we help get the information or we redact the documents and we would provide the response because if you're not going to provide a document you have to tell the person why or you have to give them the document that's redacted and have to tell them why it was redacted without giving away what was in the document so there's a lot of responsibility of the town it's not just a regular we have this in our file we should just give it because it's a public record because what's what's in your file could have confidential information on it that could violate the rights of an employee of a citizen of an investigation things like that thank you you're welcome um okay so um a person making a public records gr can do so orally in person uh they can deliver it in hand to The Rao they can deliver it by first class mail or email or fax however The Rao is not required to take phone call requests and that makes a lot of sense um but otherwise you know if if a person I get a call I get particularly in not here so much but in some other communities there will be a person will come up and say can I have this record and then you know some people get mad say well why you know put it in writing or whatever right but they're not required to so what what we've done is create a document where they write the request down the person getting the request writes the request down and then reads it to the person making the request and has them sign it so that we know it's accurate so they can't come back later and say oh that's not exactly what I asked for right so we try to have some kind of record of it so that internally you can keep track of it so when does it get I'm trying to figure out I know like if someone ask me something about maybe a something that the building inspector might issue as a selectman someone comes up to me I mean my first thought's going to be why don't you go to the building inspector's office and check with Peter right but is that actually public records request it is and and so shouldn't that go to Tracy let's say no so what happens is the the custodian will then coordinate with the records access officer all the department heads know this right so if Peter gets a request a couple things could happen if you have the document imminently accessible to you and you know it's a public document right then you're supposed to copy it and give it to them and then you can tell the records access officer I got a public records request this is who it was from and it's gone we're done we gave it to them right so you keep track of it but if it's readily accessible you're supposed to give it to the person if it's easily done but then they coordinate it everybody here is really good about that people know tell Tracy tell Gretchen tell whoever that they've gotten a request and they fulfilled public information requests or public request for information is that that could be that just that verbal app two different so there's two different things there's a difference between a public information request which doesn't really there isn't really such a thing or a public records request and the reason this is important is as follows you are not required to create a document that doesn't exist okay that's why it's called the public records law so you're not required to create a document that doesn't exist this is particularly important for people who are doing that makes perfect sense right PE for people who are doing fishing Expeditions like National companies trying to get lists of things we get requests in everybody does that a company wants to make sure they get bid documents or that they know how many you know how many gallons of you know wash you're selling right so they'll send a request to the treasurer's office or to the clerk and say give us a list of all the rfps you've ever issued for the sale of soap I don't know I'm making something up right and and that's so you don't keep a list of that right you don't have that list so the response always is there are no public records responsive to your request right you don't have to go searching through all the documents and create a list okay so if somebody comes to you and says I need something from the building department I need a building permit I need whatever you say go see Peter that's fine or you can say go see Gretchen it doesn't matter but you obviously can't get them the document and you're not required to okay um so as I said The Rao has responsibility they have to um document the nature of the request and the datea is received the date response was provided to the requestor the date the records were provided to the requestor the number of hours required to fulfill the request the fees is charged if any um any petitions submitted under uh section 10 or section 10A these are appeals to the Secretary of State's office uh the time required to comply with the request um with the supervisor's orders um and final adjudication of any Court action necessary to that particular request so oftentimes a request come in comes in and it's voluminous right you can't just automatically respond to it or require some research so you have 10 business days to respond to a public record request a response doesn't mean that you're going to provide the documents in 10 days it means that you have to give documentation to the person requested that says I've received your request we're looking for the records we believe it's going to take X number of hours to get your records we believe it's going to cost X number of dollars to get those records we'll give those records to you when we get them and then you have 25 days to do that if you need more than 25 days and believe me there are plenty of times that you do we have to get permission to go beyond the 25 days so that's there are time frames but you also have to remember you don't have to stop all the work of the town in order to comply with the public records request there are other things that you have to do but the records access officer is responsible for all of that activity um so as I said they have to be provided the documents or a response has to be provided in no less than 10 business days following the receipt um and if they don't provide a response in those 10 days they then can't charge a fee to fulfill the request which is really important on really big requests because it takes time takes hours of Staff it takes copying whatever it is um and so you're allowed to charge for those um but you have to respond within 10 days in order to be able to assess a fee what do um seems like a public record request has a lot of hus power I mean what happens in towns that have in the rural parts of our state that have five employees working in town hall yeah so we represent some of those people right and uh some of those town and you you know smaller towns less records right so um they're they're pretty Adept at responding or they'll reach out to us and say help um we do a lot of like all responses for a couple of those small towns um and Secretary of State's office is pretty reasonable about time periods um so it can get expensive it can get expensive yep also I in the in this whole scheme of things there's a lot of stuff that's required to be put on our our town website which I would imag if you just read through that list of the requirements that are supposed to be there it really would to in my mind it eliminates 90% of the requests that you may or may not get yeah because it's already posted and and and out there for you just to grab it you know so yeah but you should be careful of the things that say that they should posted I said required I I mean it's cut and dry it's required to be there and and I didn't say should no no no I'm just saying so for example like one of the big complaints we get all the time is that um the under the open meeting law which then becomes a public record uh the minutes aren't posted online right I can't tell you how many complaints I've gotten taken to the AG's office where complaintant says your minutes are required to be posted online nothing requires your minutes to be posted online they have to be available and it would be convenient if they're online but they are not required to be online so anyway that but that list is a very helpful list and most things are now available online anyway so it has made things a lot easier for sure um so uh as I said earlier if the town can't um provide the record in a the records within the 10 days they have to confirm receipt identify the category of records and when they're going to be um responded to and who has the records right so um that's a responsibility The Rao um they also have to identify which records aren't going to be produced and why you have to say why they are and if they're redacted you have to say why things are being redacted um and then if there are too many records you can't produce them because there are too many and it's going to take you a while you have to ident ify that there are too many and it's burdensome and so often times The Rao will be as will be asking requesters could you be a little more specific here like you've asked me for all emails from all Town elected officials for the last 15 years do you really want that or are you looking for something more specific like all emails around the Council on Aging uh about a building in the last two years well that's a little more respon and then if you have is there somebody you're looking for like John Doe like give me John Doe and then I can even so you try to help narrow the request so it's not as as broad um and and oftentimes that happens which is good um you have to include a good faith estimate of the fees um that are going to be charged and um you have to um always include at the end of every correspondence that the requestor has a right to appeal to the Secretary of State's office office and that's actually a requirement of Law and we often times forget it because it's so easy because you're like oh I'm answering I'm answering I'm answering answering thank you g very regards least to me oh you have a right to appeal this to the Secretary of State's office so even if you're responding and giving people documents with a cover letter you have to include that statement that they have a right to appeal it to the Secretary of State's office and we have forms that we've given all of our communities you know here's a first resp response here's the second response here's the third response just so you have them and they're easily um pulled and then they put in all the details that are appropriate for each of the individual requests um so um The Rao may also as soon as practicable and within 20 business days after the initial request or within 10 days after the receipt of determination by the supervisor petition the supervisor for an extension of time up to 30 days so if you can't get the documents in that time period and the requestor won't give you an extension you can request the extension of the supervisor and the supervisor typically will give you an extension up to 30 days um so what can you charge um you can charge if somebody needs to have something on a thumb drive you can charge for the thumb drive uh 5 cents for all black and white copies of everything um whether it's single or double-sided um you can also charge for an employees time but no more than $25 or equal to the highest paid employee able to respond to the request in that department so if that pay is less than $25 an hour that's the most you can charge for that employees time to respond to the request um you can't resp if you have more than 20,000 people which you don't um you can't charge for the first two hours um you cannot charge for time spent segregating or redacting unless it's required by law and approved by the supervisor um and then fees may be waved upon a showing that the production of the requested records are in the public interest every newspaper in the entire Common Wealth that ever or news station whichever asks for a public record request always asks for a waiver of the fees because it's in the public interest it's like a thing that they have at the bottom of every letter they make it's just it's so anyway you can ask for a waiver but it does not have to be granted at all who's the supervisor Secretary of State's office SEC okay yeah so whenever you whenever right so it it's actually not Secretary of State it's the head of the public records division he's considered she actually is considered a supervisor um you can also weigh the fee if the uh person making it shows the financial inability to pay so you can do that um and again as I said no fees can be charged if the town fails to respond uh within the first 10 days um so uh the public access records access officer may deny public records requests from a requestor who has failed to compensate the agency or municipality for previously produced public records so that's what the law says okay you don't pay me for the last records you asked you asked me to produce this many records and I've told you it's going to cost um $10 right so I've got the records all ready to go you never bring the check in you never come get the records so I spend all that time getting all those records right so this says if you failed to compensate the town I don't have to do a public rec request for you again right that's what this says huh but that's not how they interpret it they say that if the person making the request has agreed initially to make the payment and then they fail to make the payment then you can deny the request however the way the system is set up is that there's not ever like you send out the letter saying it's going to take five days and it's going to cost you $110 and then you're required by law to produce the documents and get them ready to go there's never an opportunity for the person to write back or call up and say say yep that's okay I'll pay you the money right never but now we we actually have now tried to accommodate that by saying okay it's going to cost $110 you still you still want the records and get a response back because otherwise it doesn't matter whether you've produced the documents or not if you've never got their actual acquiescence to the fee then you can't ever stop prod producing the documents is the are we required to give the requestor the records if they haven't paid yet is that no no you don't you're not required to but the next time so they sit there on your desk now you've spent all that time I actually had this case and I had a case where I had two Selectmen in a very contentious issue I had to go through and redact two years worth of emails their emails right and literally it was for a newspaper and literally I'm talking about Stacks like this and they never came to pick him up and we we did all that work right never came to pick them up then made another request we denied the request so the limit I'm I'm trying to just the 10day limitation then the 25 day limitation that they just have to be available to the requeste within that time period but we don't necessarily have to them mail them or no no no they have to be available in fact I never if people owe money no no no they got to come pick up that's what I no no gotta right um okay so um there is a um harassment provision in um the law that says basically if the magnitude or difficulty of the request or the receipt of multiple requests from the same request is unduly burdensome and unduly burdens the other responsibilities of the municipality a records access officer May petition the supervisor of Records that they don't have to continue responding to these requests right there's been one case one case in Massachusetts where this has been applied notwithstanding the claims for harassment and it was in um Welsley Welsley and there was a a guy who was a Perpetual harassing public records requester and then it he was just awful and he was was also making requests of one of my towns and so like we're watching and we're watching and they had they kept trying to get the Secretary of State's office to say he's harassing because he was ask it was just it was a it was just ridiculous stuff it was and he there was no it didn't seem to be there was any purpose even though that's not one of the standards and he finally asked for the same thing that he was given four months earlier and it voluminous requests right and then secretary State's office said that's harassment you don't have to respond to that request that was it though and this guy was Perpetual like I was two or three requests a day as they practically had one person doing nothing but responding to public records requests one time it's all that's been that but there is the provision in the law um there's also a public record assistance fund which was established when they um first passed this law in um was it 2017 I think is when they updated the law um to help give money to municipalities to do technology to help with this but I don't know anybody that's ever gotten any money from it but apparently there is a a fund there um and um there has been a recent case um to help basically help clerks get people to be more specific about their requests so as I said earlier sometimes people come in and just make really broad requests like you know I want all of the emails for the last 10 years that have anything to do with you know I whatever the building department that's a lot of emails and so the town has a right the record access officer has a right to say to the person okay look you need to ma narrow this down that's it's too many emails there's not enough specifics the building department and in 10 years not enough specifics and the court has finally said that it's true that where um the where the the case is um where the request is too broad and sweeping it does not have to be responded to and if the person fails to narrow the request even though they've been asked to it does not have to be responded to so you have to make an effort to get the person to narrow the request you can't just blatantly say I'm not I'm not answering it because it's too broad you have to make an effort to get the person to narrow the request if they don't narrow their request you can say I'm not replying to your request but it has to be in writing and you have to say the law says it's too broad and sweeping and you've refused to narrow your request and therefore I can't respond to your request and that could be appealed through the St well yeah this yeah and this is from this is an appeals court case right so um but yeah so that that can be appealed to the SEC supervisor of Records who says who says you know and you come a letter on the bottom it would say if you disagree with you can appeal you have a right to appeal it that's that's exactly that's exactly right so that's like a broad overview of the public records law but you know I think that what you let me say one other thing that's important um if you have a record that you think is confidential let's say you have a report um the specifics you're not going to discuss but kind of broadly you have an item on your agenda you want to talk about and you think that report is should be is is and it is supposed to be a confidential report right and you refer to it in your meeting it makes it a public record okay so in the case of um it's a w one of those W towns on Route uh on the pike um whan they're always WTS I I know so in the case of way had Wellsley wh right so this is whan and Wayan actually had a whole host of SJC cases there for a while um there was a uh it was a superintendent of schools and he had had his review done and the review itself the various parts of the review itself was a confidential document the final document was not eventually it was eventually a public record but the various aspects of it were confidential and should have remained confidential and so they were doing a superintendent review and a public meeting right and that's all okay and then one of the members brought out the confidential document thinking it was still confidential and started referring to it not necessarily reading from it but referring to it and so there was a public records request made of that document after the meeting and they refused to give it this it's confidential it's you know it's the preliminary review it's not a public document and the SJC said oh contrary you referred to it in a public meeting it becomes a public document all right so you do you do have I mean some because there are sometimes that you have subject matters that are confidential in and of themselves but you have a right to talk about like a broader aspect of it in public and you should talk about certain things in public just be careful not to refer to any particular document that is a confidential document in the public meeting like you can do like a hypothetical yeah right right okay I'm still a little lost of [Music] when a document I guess the minute it's written it becomes public yeah [Music] even if it hasn't so voting on something or whatever I mean it's a so it's a okay the minute so for for all of you the minute let's say you get your package from Joy or Tracy the minute you get that package that everything in that package is a public document and if it's matters for executive session those should be if they're not set separately those are not necessarily public but I don't know that anybody ever well we don't no we don't disperse that electronically I know when we go into which I and you shouldn't and and we and they also get collected at the end of the executive session so that I don't bring it home and leave it on my desktop that's exactly right and that that's what our that's what our advice is to everybody I do have a couple of communities that send out a separate executive session email to their um boards mostly the slack board and I I hate it I cringe because then it it's out there in The Ether and I I know I just know that it's eventually going to get into the wrong hands not on purpose necessarily it just happens right how many times have you accidentally send an email to the wrong person right so yes I know get back give back I always like to see then what does it say cancel email or whatever withdraw email I'm like yeah that doesn't work I've already seen it right now that anyway so um yeah the minute a document is created the minute a text that there is actually a case also um uh may have been whaling I don't want to bad mouth whing on this one it was somebody and they were sharing texts in you know the there were some contentious meeting going on and you could the person in the audience could see that there were like two Selectmen that are like sending texts back and forth so there was public records request made for those texts and they said no it's confidential and um they said absolutely not those are public documents so good one all right yeah it was really informative here you go so somebody if somebody asks one of us for a document our cand answered should be what you're asking for me for is a public records request and we have a process for that set by Massachusetts General lives can you please um go to the go the Town Clerk or the Town Administrator or the department head file public records request so that we make sure that we we yeah and it does you don't have to send it to The Rao let's be clear any custodian of Records you can send them to any department for the convenience of your person making the request you can say Hey you know that's an Assessor's document it's a public record you really should go do that and we have to keep track of it through our records access officer so yeah the records access officer would be number one but you can also send them to a department head and the department head will take care of it through the records access officer and so the mindset CU I know when I first got on the board I I had this mindset well it's a public record I can give it out that's really not appropriate because there are parameters around it that get to trouble block right you got it is that an accurate statement that is accurate so that means I just can't run around passing things out right you shouldn't because it has to it should go you got to keep track of it right the records access officer has to keep track of it you can just say something like you know thank you for the request however I don't have authority to handle that myself this is what you need to do it's exactly right you can't pass that information on yourself to the the public request no you could you can say to them hey somebody's going to come in and make this request I told them to see you you can say that just to kind of but you can't make the request for the person it has to actually come from the person that's questioning I imagine you could make yourself really popular if there was a public record like as small as that email request and you gave it to the newspaper oh you can make yourself really popular so I mean it's just saying it's really a weird dynamic yeah no it's it is it is I I I don't it's hard yeah but you keep yourself out of trouble I mean and and frankly you don't want to be answering public re requests because what you know you you give something to some person the other person says well you gave it to them why don't you give it to me right I mean I think it's just it it's it's more streamlined and it's the right thing to do is to go through the Rao I think personally to keep keep my mind straight I think a good rule of thumb that I use is that if it's something that we are going to deliberate on or we have not deliberated on it yet then it's really none of anybody's business right be because we haven't because I I read in the document there that I showed you uh you know something that we are going to be deliberating on in the future whether it be a zoning issue or or any that we are going to be deliberating on as soon as you get out in public and you start talking about it you're you're you're opening yourself up for possibly well Dana said that he's going to vote this way right yeah you know what I mean and and I can't imagine that that it's not a good thing that's not a good thing it's not a good position to be in you know so I I I kind of use that as as my own measure stick yeah on what I want to talk about what I want to release you know and and obviously anything that's going to be deliberated on in the in the future is it's not a good idea to to get that information out there I agree and when in doubt just ask that's what I always you're welcome thanks yeah any more questions no thank you thank you very much my pleasure bill could I have a motion to adjourn the meeting motion to adjourn second any discussion call vote Dana yes Jeff Jeff Walky yes Lesley yes de Mayo yes Lea yes thank you very very much Lisa thanks again my pleasure