2.70.110 Fees—Production in installments.

(1)    Inspection. No fee shall be charged for the inspection of public records. No fee shall be charged for locating public documents and making them available for copying.

(2)    Fees for Copying. A reasonable charge may be imposed for providing copies of public records and for the use by any person of available county equipment to copy public records, which charges shall not exceed the amount necessary to reimburse the county for its actual costs directly incident to such copying.

(a)    The county council finds that Clark County government is comprised of many branches, boards, departments, divisions, subdivisions, agencies, offices, commissions, councils, and many other county entities that maintain separate and distinct recordkeeping systems. The records are voluminous, diverse, complex, and are stored in incompatible databases. Calculating the actual costs for copying these records would be overwhelmingly costly to the Clark County taxpayers, while substantially interfering with effective and timely county office operations. As a result, it would be unduly burdensome to determine the actual costs for copying public records, and as such, Clark County will adopt the fee schedule set forth in RCW 42.56.120(2) and (3).

(b)    For the purpose of emails, the term “electronic file,” as used in RCW 42.56.120(2)(b)(iii), means each discrete email.

(c)    Requests of a significant nature and magnitude may be copied by a commercial vendor at the requestor’s cost and will be subject to a deposit, based on the estimated cost, before copying.

(3)    The actual cost of postage, delivery charges, containers or envelopes used to mail the records to the requestor may be charged.

(4)    Any county agency may require a deposit in an amount not to exceed ten (10) percent of the estimated cost of providing copies for a request. If an agency makes a request available on a partial or installment basis, the agency may charge for each part of the request as it is provided. If an installment of a records request is not paid for, claimed or reviewed, the agency is not obligated to fulfill the balance of the request.

(5)    At the discretion of the public records coordinator, fees may be waived. (Sec. 11 of Ord. 2007-07-09; amended by Sec. 7 of Ord. 2018-06-04)