I probably should have expounded more in this space last week on the absurdity of Eureka Springs city attorney Forrest Jacobi attempting to bill the Lovely County Citizen’s parent company, CherryRoad Media, more than $16,000 for the city’s responses to our requests for public information pursuant to the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act dating back to 2019.

Just the total amount is enough to raise some immediate questions, but a deeper dive into Mr. Jacobi’s alleged invoice reveals just how truly ridiculous and spiteful the whole thing is.

The entire invoice is built around Mr. Jacobi’s contention that the FOIA allows a respondent to bill a requester for any time expended beyond two hours in a single calendar year in answering requests for information. So far in 2022, for example, Mr. Jacobi’s invoice details 29 separate requests for information, with a response time totaling 244 hours. At a charge of $22 an hour, minus our two free hours, Mr. Jacobi claims we owe $5,324 for responses provided by the city in 2022. That works out to an average of $183.58 for each request.

I should note that those 29 separate requests include 13 requests for audio recordings of various commission meetings, which the city is required by law to maintain. For each of those requests, Mr. Jacobi’s invoice includes a two-hour charge — $44 to send us an electronic copy of a recording.

One interesting line item on Mr. Jacobi’s invoice relates to a request I made for information on the police investigation into alleged computer trespassing at the Eureka Springs City Advertising and Promotion Commission. That investigation, which began in February 2021, remains ongoing as of my most recent communication with police chief Brian Young, who has cited the ongoing investigation as a reason to deny my request.

The line item on Mr. Jacobi’s invoice indicates that I made the request on April 6, but the fact is that I emailed my request to Chief Young on March 31. Having not received a response by April 6, I phoned the police department and left the chief a voicemail that was not returned by that afternoon. I then sent another email and received a response the following day from Chief Young, who explained that he had been out of the office and had missed my previous email and added that no information would be released.

For that exchange, Mr. Jacobi’s invoice includes a charge for eight hours, equal to $176. And I thought I was a slow typist.

On May 27, I emailed mayoral assistant Kim Stryker the following questions: “Does the city of Eureka Springs require that prospective employees complete an official application? Are all prospective employees subject to a background check? Would a previous felony conviction preclude an individual from being employed by the city?”

For the answer to those questions, Mr. Jacobi’s bill includes another eight-hour, $176 charge.

On June 6, I inquired about new information that had been placed in a former city employee’s personnel file since a previous request I filed May 20. Ms. Stryker responded to my email the same day, explaining that the city’s human resources coordinator was out of the office and she did not have access to personnel files until his return. Two days later, Ms. Stryker emailed me a copy of a single document — a letter that had been placed in the former employee’s personnel file. The bill for that information? Two full days of labor, 16 hours, $352.

The most interesting detail of all, however, is the charge listed for responding to a request for information I sent July 14. It was, admittedly, a broad request. I was looking for information related to the ongoing lawsuit filed in June by former city employee Dannelle Tomarchio. As I’ve related in this space before, most of that information originally existed in electronic form, but city officials insisted that it had to be printed out and manually redacted. They then attempted to bill me 10 cents a page for almost 2,100 pages of material. It was after I balked at paying that amount that Mr. Jacobi informed me that the city would “bill” me.

As I mentioned, I sent my request on July 14. Some of the material was provided on July 19, while I was notified via email from Mr. Jacobi on Aug. 2 that the remainder was available at a cost of $207.40. July 14 was a Thursday. Beginning the following day, July 15, and continuing through Monday, Aug. 1, there were 12 working days.

And, of course, Mr. Jacobi’s invoice includes a charge for 12 full eight-hour days at $22 an hour. That’s $2,112 — just over $1 a page and a production rate of 21.6 copies per hour. And I’m quite positive that the city employee responsible for responding to my request worked on nothing else for more than two weeks — didn’t attend a meeting, didn’t send an unrelated email, didn’t answer the phone. Clearly.

And if you pull this leg, it plays Jingle Bells.

Now, let’s get real. The Freedom of Information Act does allow respondents to charge for labor under very narrow circumstances — when a requester asks a respondent to make information available in a special electronic format. We’ve never asked the city of Eureka Springs to do that. When those circumstances do exist and a respondent is allowed to bill a requester for labor, the respondent may bill only for time expended in excess of two hours for each request, not two hours a year.

The FOIA stipulates, by the way, that when a special request for electronic information does trigger a respondent’s right to bill a requester for personnel time “(t)he charge for personnel time shall not exceed the salary of the lowest paid employee or contractor who, in the discretion of the custodian, has the necessary skill and training to respond to the request.”

I’m going to guess that there aren’t many employees in City Hall who make $22 an hour. I’m also going to guess that the city hasn’t billed anyone else for personnel time in responding to FOIA requests, and certainly not to the tune of $16,742.72.

I should also mention that every time we’ve asked for information from the city and been informed that there was a charge due, we’ve paid it — until the city decided to drown me in paper and overcharge me in an effort to prevent me from keeping the public informed on what its government is doing.

And make no mistake. That’s exactly what this is really all about. Mr. Jacobi and others apparently want to stem the flow of information and keep the citizens of Eureka Springs in the dark.

Our job is to shine a light. And we are going to do our job.

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Scott Loftis is managing editor for Carroll County Newspapers. His email address is SLoftis@cherryroad.com.