RGA - Republican Governors Association correspondence (June to October 2016) (Office of the Governor - Iowa)

David,

Thank you for submitting your open records request. I received your open records request today, October 6, 2016.

It is my understanding you are requesting copies of all correspondence sent to or from the Office of the Governor and any email address(es) containing an "@rga.org" e-mail suffix, as well as all correspondence that contain(s) the term(s) "Republican Governor's Association" or "RGA." The date range for the records you are requesting is from June 1, 2016 to October 5, 2016.
Our office has as policy to charge for open records requests. Our office policy is to provide the first ten (10) pages of any copied document(s) free of charge. Any additional pages exceeding those initial ten (10) copied pages will require a fee of ten cents ($0.10) per page. Also, we provide three (3) free hours of staff review time regarding any documents requested. Over and above those initial three (3) free hours, a fee of thirty-three dollars ($33.00) per hour will be assessed.
Please confirm that my understanding of your open records request search criteria is correct. Also, please confirm that you understand and accept our office's open records charging policy.
Thank you,

-Colin

Colin C. Smith
Deputy Legal Counsel
Office of the Governor
& Lt. Governor of Iowa
#(515)725-3516
Colin.Smith@Iowa.Gov<mailto:Colin.Smith@Iowa.Gov>

Email correspondence to and from this address may be subject to the Iowa Public Records Law, Code of Iowa Chapter 22, and may be disclosed to third parties.

David,

What I can do is have the technology office responsible for searching the emails run a preliminary check to determine who many emails come back. I won't be able to determine how many of those hits are responsive at that time without actually going through them, but I should be able to provide you with some type of estimate for possible review time.

I will get back to you as soon as the technology office runs that search.

Thanks,

-Colin

Colin C. Smith
Deputy Legal Counsel
Office of the Governor
& Lt. Governor of Iowa
#(515)725-3516
Colin.Smith@Iowa.Gov<mailto:Colin.Smith@Iowa.Gov>

Email correspondence to and from this address may be subject to the Iowa Public Records Law, Code of Iowa Chapter 22, and may be disclosed to third parties.

David,

The technology office ran the search you requested below. Their preliminary search returned 516 emails.

The rule-of-thumb we typically use for reviewing emails in our office is about 70 emails/an hour. Using this calculation, we can estimate that it may take approximately 7.3 hours to review the emails that came back from this preliminary search. Under our charging policy as outlined below, and accounting for the three free hours of staff review time we provide, this works out to an estimated charge of at least $144.25. This estimate would not include any hard copy records that may be subject to copying charges, nor would it include any staff review time for any records other than emails.

Again, the numbers above are just a non-binding estimate. It is possible that it may take more or less time to satisfy this request.

Please let us know if you would like our office to proceed with your request. In the event you would like to refine your search terms, please let us know and we would be happy to work with you.

Thanks,
-Colin

David,

I do not believe there is a way to eliminate news clippings through the email filtering/searching process. The only way to eliminate them is to manually examine each email and disregard them.

Per your other email (attached), I will have the technology office re-run your search so that it aims to only capture emails sent to or from the Office of the Governor during the relevant time period that include the email suffix "@rga.org."

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,
-Colin

David,

Our technology office ran a revised search for you. It returned approximately 53 emails per your revised search term matrix.

Again, using our standard review estimation system of 70 emails/an hour, this amount of emails should be able to be reviewed within the three free hours of staff review time that our office provides per our charging policy (see below). This estimation does not take into account any copying charges that may be incurred for documents produced in hard copy.

If you would like our office to proceed with this request, please let us know.

Also, for your information, I may be out of the office next week for a family obligation. If you respond to this email and receive an out-of-office reply, it will have the contact information for another individual who may be able to assist you with this request while I am away.

Thank you,
-Colin

David,

Thank you for your follow-up. This request is currently being processed. We will notify you as soon as it is ready.

Thanks,
-Colin

David,

Your open records request is ready for pick-up in our office. Our office is located in the State Capitol in G-9. Our office is open from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Our office policy is to provide the first ten pages of any copied document(s) free of charge. Any additional pages exceeding those initial ten copied pages require a fee of ten cents per page. Also, we provide three free hours of staff review time regarding any documents requested. Over and above those initial three free hours, a fee of thirty-three dollars per hour is assessed. There is no charge for this open records request.

If you choose to have this request mailed to you, please contact Christina Bettini at #(515) 725-3517 or Christina.Bettini@Iowa.gov<mailto:Christina.Bettini@Iowa.gov>. Thank you.

Regards,

-Colin

Colin C. Smith
Deputy Legal Counsel
Office of the Governor
& Lt. Governor of Iowa
#(515)725-3516
Colin.Smith@Iowa.Gov<mailto:Colin.Smith@Iowa.Gov>

Email correspondence to and from this address may be subject to the Iowa Public Records Law, Code of Iowa Chapter 22, and may be disclosed to third parties.

A copy of documents responsive to the request.

Good morning,

Sorry, yes this has gone in the mail.

Please let me know if you have any questions or need anything else.
Thanks!

Christina Bettini
Public Liaison
Office of Governor Terry E. Branstad

David,

This request has been ready to go for a while. Did you contact Christina Bettini in our office to have it sent to you? If not, I have copied her here.

Thanks,
-Colin