City of Tyler Texas - First Amendment Audit Emails Search

Dear Mr. Martin,

The City of Tyler Police Department is in receipt of your Public Information Request dated 10/10/22, which seeks the following information:

Any email controlled, maintained or archived by the City of Tyler using the following requirements: 1)Any email having the following keywords either in the subject line or within the body of the email: "1st Amendment Audit" or "1st Amendment Auditor" "First Amendment Audit" or "First Amendment Auditor" 2)This Request applies to the City of Tyler Police Department 3)This Request applies to any employee of the City of Tyler Police Department, past or present.

The Texas Public Information Act, at Texas Gov't Code Sec. 552.222(b), provides that if a large amount of information has been requested, the governmental body may discuss with the requestor how the scope of the request might be narrowed, but the governmental body may not inquire into the purposes for which the information will be used. Similarly, Texas Gov't Code Sec. 552.222(a) states that the officer for public information and officer's agent may not make inquiry of a requestor except to establish proper identification as provided by Texas Gov't Code Sec. 552.222(b), (c), or (c-1).

Due to the large volume of information that would need to be searched, the Police Department forwarded your Request to the City's IT Computer Department. The IT Department has indicated that presently, the scope of your request would require a search of least 8,000 documents. Pursuant to Texas Gov't Code Sec. 552.222(b), our Office would like to ask if you would be able to clarify or reduce the scope of your Request by providing a specific Time Range for the records sought. That would help the City to narrow its word search and would increase the time that the City can respond.

Upon receipt of your response, our Office will have a better idea on how to proceed.

Respectfully,

Steven M. Kean, Deputy City Attorney